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wheneclipsefalls · 17 days

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Little Gift- Tremble

Pairing: Soft Dark Neteyam x Fem Human Reader

Little Gift Masterlist

Beautiful adult Neteyam pic by @cinetrix2

Summary: This is your last chance to run.

Warnings: aged up Neteyam, NSFW minors do not interact, dark Neteyam, NONCON/DUBCON, spanking, dirty talk, punishment, size difference, etc.

A/N: This one took a little longer than intended with all the life stuff going on, but yay it's here. Also, migt have gotten a little carried away with this part.

The outpost feels like a relic of a different time. One that you have only heard of in stories, but now seeing those worn down bunk beds and the corner of a room that Spider calls his own, it doesn’t feel as glorious. The worst part, however, is how naked you feel around other humans. It’s only a slight comfort that Spider is wearing Na’vi apparel too.

“Oh and yeah and this is a spear I made in Awalatuu.” Spider says. “But maybe let’s move it out of the way.” He gives an awkward chuckle but it’s obvious that his only concern is you suddenly deciding to use it against him.

Your arrival at the outpost had been anything but graceful. In hindsight you would have preferred to meet these people face to face instead of over Neteyam’s shoulder.

“If you want we can uh….watch a movie. Oh yeah I bet I could swipe Norm’s Star Wars collection.”

You don’t return the smile he gives you, too busy awkwardly sitting on his bed while pouting. You never thought it would feel strange to be back in a place like this but after being around the Na’vi for the past week, the outpost feels like walking into a rundown dollhouse. Everything is your size and nothing is as beautifully crafted as Neteyam’s kelku.

The awkward silence is slightly painful but you can’t find it within yourself to feel bad for Spider. Not when he hasn’t shown even a morsel of sympathy for your situation. Your own kind and not even they find it important to get you out of here. Not that they could anyways. No doubt Neteyam would view such actions as a betrayal.

“He wouldn’t let you come along, huh?” You finally ask.

Spider stops digging through the worn down hard drives.

“Who?”

“Neteyam. Didn’t want you coming to see the RDA off either?”

Spider scoffs at the, leaving the tech behind to cross the small room.

“I wouldn’t say that. I’m not the one he’s worried about getting into trouble.”

Spider may not have heightened senses like the Na’vi but you worry that he sees the way your hands ball around the thin blankets.

“So Lo’ak handed the role of babysitter off to you somehow.” You lean back against the cold wall, trying to appear bored by the conversation.

“Just for today. He was clear that I would only be a substitute.”

Your brows furrow at that. Maybe Lo’ak doesn’t mind watching over you as much as he lets on. Then again Lo’ak never fails to find your company amusing, and for all the wrong reasons. Some days you wonder if Neteyam would really be cross with you for slapping his brother across the face. Maybe if you batted your lashes and played it off as self defense….

“Well I’m sorry you can’t be there.”

It’s Spider’s turn to look confused.

“Why?”

“Colonel Quaritch is your dad, isn’t he?”

“That asshole is nothing close to a father.” Spider’s jaw clenches, posturing already shifting to loom over you. He may be human but his six foot frame of striped muscle greatly outweighs your own.

“Oh trust me, I know. Quaritch has been nothing but a tyrant my entire life. I honestly don’t know how he managed to get back into General Ardmore’s good graces after half the stunts he has pulled. That’s why I was excited for today. Finally see that bastard put in his place.” Spider watches you closely. In some ways it feels like all he is missing he ears and tail of a Na’vi.

“Thought maybe you would want to see that too.”

You know a good deal about Spider Soccoro. He is a story that is often shared among the recombinants but never in Quaritch’s presence. Many tales have been told of the feral stripped boy that was more trouble than worth. You wonder if the stories would have been different if he hadn’t chosen the Sullys in the end. Still, even with their biased filters you know that they put Spider through hell.

Kidnapping is traumatic enough without having to watch islands burn and friends cry for justice.

“I don’t care what happens to that bastard.” Spider huffs before promptly turning around and fishing through the hard drives once more. You’ve killed the already strained mood.

“Well then you’re a better person than me. Good for you.” Spider doesn’t answer but you can tell he is listening.

A bitter laugh escapes you. “Hell, I’ve only had to put up with him from a distance and I would ring his neck myself if given the chance.”

Spider’s fingers fiddle with a blue hard drive, eyes staring down thoughtfully.

“But I guess I should trust Neteyam to give him what he deserves. Watch that monster tuck his tail and accept his failure for what it is.” It’s the one cause you consider Neteyam and yourself on the same side of.

Leaning back, you prop your feet up onto the creaky mattress.

“Yeah.” He says shortly.

“Ugh don’t get me started on Lyle though-”

“What are you trying to do?” Spider springs to his feet, glaring daggers down at you.

“What do-”

“Do you think I’m really that stupid? Neteyam told me you would do this. Trying to spin a story that would allow you to escape.”

You swallow the lump in your throat. You’re startled by the outburst to say the least but at this point there is nothing to lose. This man you only met fifteen minutes ago is the difference between spending the rest of your days here and returning back to Earth. Neteyam’s punishments are far from being enough to deter you from taking this chance.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t trying to-”

“Would it kill you to just stay out of trouble for this one day? For my sake?” The look he gives you is anything but tender in comparison to his words.

The bitter taste of impending failure is already settling in. You can already feel the immense weight of this dread and it springs you into action. This can’t be the end.

It won’t be.

“Can you really blame me though? For wanting to say goodbye to everything and everyone I have ever known?”

Spider goes quiet, hazel eyes suddenly avoiding your own gaze.

“Believe whatever you want but the fact is this day will never repeat. This is literal history and…” You voice quivers, blunt teeth sinking into your bottom lip in restraint. The last barrier to holding the words back. “The last glimpse at my old life.”

You don’t allow the gravity of those whispered words to plant themselves. This is all a ruse after all. Just enough sadness to get Spider to cooperate and yet saying it out loud feels like tying an anchor to your ankle. Truly realizing how stuck you may be from here on out.

Spider doesn’t say anything for a long while. Neither of you look at each other, letting the silence sizzle between you.

And then finally….

“We have to be quick.”

“And no touching anything. I mean it, shit out here can be extremely poisonous.” Spider rattles on, listing yet another rule to follow as the two of you venture through the thick terrain. You roll your eyes. You may not be a match for the creatures of Pandora physically but you’ve studied enough to understand what to stay away from.

“We’re there for five minutes tops, got it?” Spider says as he pushes a hanging branch out of your path.

“Yes sir.” You salute him playfully. Now that you are less than a mile away from Bridgehead a certain giddiness begins to take over. It swirls together with your nerves and apprehension but it doesn’t deter you. This is the closest you have been to freedom in a week.

Eywa’s mightiest creatures could not keep you from your goal.

Years down the road when you wake up from kyro this will all be some awful dream that embeds itself into your revenge arch. Starting with Miles Quaritch of course.

“I’m being serious. Neteyam will kill me if he sees you out here. I’m sticking my neck out for you.”

“It will be worth it.” You say simply, a skip in your step when you recognize the familiar path that leads back to Bridgehead. This the same one you had carved deeper with every trip you had taken to your oasis. Looking back there is nothing more you regret but the sight of it still makes you smile.

Spider never stops his stern rambling. Despite the fact that he is built like a Greek God, his speeches do little to intimidate you. Not when you’re used to nine feet of solid muscle and sharp canines.

There is a bank that overhangs Bridgehead. A spot that Spider deems the perfect lookout for the two of you. You consider trying to convince him to get the two of you closer. After all, what good is a farewell that can’t be heard? Truth is, there really aren’t many people you would bother trying to say goodbye to. Jeremy moved on from you months ago, you have very little friends outside of that and what little you did have can be nothing but traitors by letting you get offered up without complaint.

It feels like a risky move, however. Spider is sure to catch wind of your deception at the first hints of you disobeying.

“Here,” Spider mutters, suddenly pulling your arm so you stand directly in front of him. This leaves you sandwiched between the cliff’s edge and Spider’s tall frame.

“Hey!” You snip at him, ripping your arm from his hold.

“This way I can keep a close eye on you.” He smirks, hands resting confidently on his hips because he knows as well as you that his physical prowess greatly outweighs your own. It’s clear his trust is far from being earned.

“Well do you have to breathe down my neck? Christ! I could use some space.”

“No chance.” Spider responds shortly but his eyes are already scanning the crowd of RDA members below.

“Neteyam doesn’t really take kindly to others sniffing around me.”

You hate to play that card but it seems to be the only one you have in your deck and if you have any chance of getting out of here, Spider can’t be pressed up against you. A harsh glare is thrown down at you but with knitted brows and a fierce frown, the male takes a few steps back. It isn’t much, surely his presence will still be your first obstacle, but it’s a start.

Every minute that passes by feels like torture. You watch as palettes of heavy equipment and artillery are rolled along the concrete with Na’vi supervising. Each one packed away is a signal of passing time, another stream of sand that falls through your hourglass of opportunity. The real nerves, however, kick in when the line of RDA members are escorted onto the ship.

How long is it going to take them to load everyone?

How long until your hopes are dashed?

You spot Neteyam taking his place at the head. He is dressed up in his traditional Olo’eyktan gear completely with a feathered mantle and oval forehead jewelry, but this time he holds a gun. He holds it with confidence, finger strategically placed over the barrel and ready to strike at a moment’s notice. His golden eyes spark today like fire. Even from your lookout spot from above, you can feel that darting heat.

You pray that they never fall on you again.

Spider shifts over your shoulder suddenly, blonde dreads ticking your neck. You scramble out of his space but instead of jerking you into place as you expect, he takes your spot at the front. Brows knitting together, you watch him carefully as he crawls forward.

Finally you spot what has captured his undivided attention.

Colonel Miles Quaritch sternly leads his band of mutants through the crowd. They tower so high over the rest of the Sky People the sight is almost comedic. However, Spider is doing anything but laughing. His mask fogs up as he watches the scene with intensity.

It’s like he is dead to the world, eyes trained on the man that has been anything but a father to him.

You expect him to cheer, snarl, anything that shouts of victory. It was promises of seeing karma after all that had bought you this outing but Spider is silent and still. And then there is something else that flashes over his demeanor, a pang of emotion that is hard for you to place.

Pain?

Hatred?

Guilt?

This swirl of tangled feelings is confusing.

Perhaps there is still so much more to learn about Spider Socorro.

Regardless, this is your chance and you plan to take it. Tension bleeding into the moment you watch Spider diligently while beginning to back away. It feels as if the world’s ambience has been muffled into background noise and the only sound breaking through is the obnoxious puff of each breath through your mask. Neteyam hadn’t given you the serum shot this morning, assuming you would be spending the whole day in the outpost. Now, however, you wish he had.

Spider is so enveloped in the moment, however, that he gives no recognition of the sound or even branch you clumsily snap when backing down from the cliff’s edge.

There is no telling how long this trance will last or at what point you will be out of ear shot so you risk it all.

Bare feet tingling in protest, you race across the forest floor. There’s no sign of an easy and stealthy way down into Bridgehead. Going back down your normal path would risk Spider spotting you race by. That’s not an option but neither is falling to your death. On the east side the cliff shallows out into a grassy hill. If you’re lucky enough you might just be able to creep down it and remain hidden beneath the heavy greenery.

Upon reaching it, however, you step on loose dirt and the world rapidly spins around you. With neither a hint of grace or stealth you clumsily roll down the hill. Your muscles ache by the time you clunk to the bottom and you’re sure there are other injuries to be found. Adrenaline dulling the pain and panic, you dart to hide in the nearest bush instantly.

The scene is so much louder now that you are up close. Heavy trucks make blaring beeping sounds while reversing and Na’vi freely let out loose cries of victory and foreign threats. The commotion is just enough to have your presence remain undetected.

You don’t bank on that lasting for long though.

Your scanty traditional Na’vi attire is sure to draw attention. You need different clothes and you need it fast. Scaling around the outskirts of the chaos, you miraculously manage to make it to that familiar run down door. Sector two-your building.

Paranoia constantly scraping at your attention, you barely let the room equalize before ripping your mask off. These hallways feel so different than you remember them. Perhaps it is the feel of the metal floors beneath bare feet or the lacking furniture and crowd. It sends a chill up your spine as you sprint towards your room.

How much time do you have?

They can’t have loaded more than half of the crew by now.

And yet, the sight of deserted halls makes your feet slap against the floor faster.

Get dressed. Immerse yourself in the crowd. Hide until take off is through and then find a kyro capsule.

You mentally check through this list.

Piece of cake.

Maybe saying it out loud would make it sound less like a fool’s hope.

Fuck it. The odds don’t matter and neither do your nerves. This is a necessity, pure survival and that will be enough to keep you going. It will because it has to.

Your feet slip across the laminated floor when you frantically scramble to go back the way you came. Two tall and ominous shadows wrap from around the opposite corner and you are afforded just enough time to dart behind a wall before Lyle and Z Dawg appear.

“You’re an idiot.” She says.

“Yeah yeah say whatever you want but don’t pretend like you wouldn’t rip someone in half for a Big Mac right now.” Lyle defends himself, their shadows now paint the dimly lit corridor, stretching closer and closer to your tucked away spot.

You could run, but these are recombinants. They would pick up the sound of your footsteps in an instant. The wind from your sprint would carry your scent.

“Sure, but I asked what your first meal back on Earth would be, not what your guilty pleasure fast food order is.”

“These savages can keep their overgrown weeded garden of a planet. I want some fucking chicken nuggets!”

As their voices become louder it appears that running will be your only choice after all.

“I don’t even know why I ask at this point.” She sighs and a short hiss echoes down the hallway.

You swallow the lump in your throat, feet repositioning as you prepare yourself to run. If you were smart you would have already been halfway down the hallway at this point but some part of you refuses to move. It clings to hope foolishly.

“Well I’m sure-”

“Shut up asshole. The comm.” Z Dawg hisses and they both turn silent, no doubt listening to the orders on the other end.

Your hands are shaking now, that tremor traveling up your shoulders as you await their response.

“Copy that.” Lyle says and then the sound of heavy boots recedes into the distance.

You can hardly believe your luck.

That dark cloud of dread ripples away and hope takes its place once more. Maybe you can pull this off after all.

Your room is exactly as you left it. No one has bothered to pack up any of your things or even dispose of your half folded laundry. This tiny corner of a shared living space has been your own for your whole life, everything you have known. It feels so small now.

Rifling through the laundry basket you find a loose green tee and a pair of tan shorts. You originally had a whole outfit planned for this day, something comfortable but nice. Those garments are, however, still crumpled up on the ground. This will have to do.

As you hastily slip them over the beaded jewelry and tewng you pray to whatever god will listen that this will be enough to keep you incognito. You are barely finished buttoning up the shorts when heavy footsteps ring down the hallway.

Their echo is soft, no doubt still several halls away but they are progressively getting louder. Now is not the time to take any more risks. This room is tiny and already cramped with scattered junk. Hiding under your bed would not only be idiotic but near impossible with the way your creaky bed swoopes so low to the ground. There is, however, an old built-in cabinet above that you’ve used to hold your clothes.

It’s just barely big enough for you to squeeze into so with those footsteps getting louder and your own terror sky rocketing, you push everything out of it and shove your body into the metal space. The door has metal slots with just enough slant to allow your visual through it.

Your clammy right hand presses over your mouth when the door to the room creaks open.

Neteyam strolls in leisurely, eyes sweeping over the cramped space with interest. With wide eyes and strangled lungs, you watch him prowl through the area slowly. He bends down to run his fingers over the rumbled sheets, the back of his hand lingers over your pillow case.

He takes his time looking through the various knick knacks and cords littering your night stand. He doesn’t hesitate to ball the old picture of Jeremy into his fists. Its remains are tossed to the side without care.

Did he toss the real Jeremy like that?

You make a vow to find him as soon as you make it on board.

Assuming Neteyam hasn’t already hunted him down.

You could look for whatever is left of Jeremy.

You can’t think about that now, though. Not as your heart is pounding against your ribs like a bird trying to escape a cage. Not when Neteyam lifts his mask for a sip of air as he plays with your tiny music box.

He is gentle with all of your belongings, roaming through the area like a man that doesn’t have hundreds of Sky People to threaten off of his planet. Surely, he will have to leave soon. He’s just here out of curiosity, more of his stalker tendencies pushing him to invade your space.

The music box looks like a Christmas ornament in his palm and you worry that he will accidently crush it. It was a pain in the ass to get and a possession you have always treasured because of that. Neteyam’s ears push forward when he finally figures out how to start the music and that delicate ballerina begins to twirl.

“Maybe it’s all of your silly trinkets.” He breaks the silence, you startle slightly. He can’t be talking to you, you remind yourself. Neteyam thinks he is alone, just nosing through your old room as he thinks out loud. “Is that what you miss so much? What has you running off and acting naughty, little gift?”

He’s bluffing. There is no way he could know you are here. Your scent has to be strong in the room but that’s to be expected since this was your living space. Ironically this should be the perfect place to hide away.

“You know,” He starts, carefully placing the music box back down. “I was planning on letting you bring some of these funny things back to our kelku once you start behaving. A little incentive to be my good girl.”

The knot in your throat is near impossible to gulp down and when you do, his ears twitch. You don’t want to believe it. How did he find you? You tug your legs closer to your chest as if you can contort yourself into a small enough ball that will magically disappear.

“But it’s obvious now that you respond better to retribution than reward.”

It’s a miracle that your lip doesn’t split from how hard your teeth press into it. Neteyam may not be able to track your scent here but the smell of blood would be a dead giveaway. All signs point to being caught but you aren’t ready to hand over the last shreds of hope yet. Neteyam doesn’t know about the cabinet. He’s bluffing about knowing you are here. No one has seen you.

“We can revisit the idea of a reward system later, pet.”

The muscles in your legs are cramping beyond relief, begging you to stretch out. You don’t heed these discomforts, too paralyzed by the proximity of your captor. Neteyam on the other hand appears deceivingly content and relaxed, rummaging through your things as if he has all the time in the world.

He carefully opens your nightstand drawer and those hairless eyebrows raise immediately. The bras are tossed to the side with the same care as the picture but then tiny little lace fabric hangs from his fingers. It’s far from your greatest problem but your cheeks heat anyways when he carefully observes your light purple panties.

Out of all the drawers to open it seems that Neteyam knows just the one to torment you with.

“Then again,” The Olo’eyktan smirks. “These are quite cute.” And this time instead of inhaling from the respirator he soaks in the scent from the small fabric instead. Your thighs clench together.

“Wouldn’t mind having my little tawtute model these for me.” He hums, while pulling out several more pairs. He tucks them away safely in a small pouch attached to his loincloth. “That is, once I finally get rid of this rebellious streak of yours.”

You allow yourself a small sigh when Neteyam goes around to the other side of the bed, just enough distance for you to breathe properly.

“Time to come out, little gift.” He squats down onto his haunches, prowling across the floor like a predator on track. He must be searching for you and if that is true then you may still have a chance yet. Neteyam may think you are in here but he doesn’t know where exactly.

Thoughts race through your mind at a thousand miles per minute. They twist and twirl to find some way that you could get out of this situation unscathed. The doorway is visible through the slanted slits of the cupboard. With the proper footing you may be able to close that distance with a courageous leap. And maybe, just maybe that would be enough to catch Neteyam off guard and give you a head start.

You make one fatal mistake, however.

If there is one thing a good prey knows to do, it is to keep sight of their predator at all times.

Your feet don’t even get the chance to hit the ground, instead dangling and thrashing once you are caught with a strong hold around your waist. Hoping is waning but disappointment sprouts into increased vigor as your nails digging into his arms and legs struggle to kick back at him.

“YOU MOTHERFUCK-” Your cursing slings into a shriek when Neteyam grabs a fistful of your hair and uses it to strongly crane your head backwards. His golden eyes are dilated until only a thin rim of molten gold is visible. The weight of his angry gaze takes your breath away.

“Enough.” He enunciates the word, like a drawn sword ready to slash. “Listen closely, pet.” The lump in your throat goes down with a strained gulp. “There is not an inch of this Sky Demon hell hole or corner of this planet that you can run to without being drawn back to me. You are mine and I’ve done well to mark my property.” The fingers intertwined in your hair tickle over the back of your neck, no doubt leaving the trail of his scent behind. “You reek of me.”

Tears gather at the corner of your eyes and you flutter them closed to avoid his burning attention.

“As you should.” His voice rumbles as nothing more than a growl against the nape of your neck.

“I never asked for this!” Your fighting dimms down to nothing more than squirming as gritting the choked words out sucks your energy away. Before you can do anything to stop it, tears blaze trails down your cheeks. “Just let me go! Please!”

“Quiet, pet.”

Another yank to your hair and the words die on your lips. It’s clear now that the time for fun and games is over. Neteyam wastes no time in throwing you onto the creaky mattress and covering your body with his own until he becomes a shadow blocking out the fluorescent light above. His thighs straddle your waist, putting just enough weight down to keep you in place.

“No more tears.” He sighs, with down turned lips, but doesn’t pause his bunching of your tee shirt. “It’s clear I’ve been spoiling you too much.”

A broken grasp is pulled from your throat when he easily tears the shirt straight down the middle. You’re not sure what you are trying to accomplish as you swat at his working hands. The shirt was neither your favorite nor of great importance but you still try to stop the onslaught of ripping.

Confused and overwhelmed you squirm as he rips it into wide ribbons of fabric and then without warning you are flipped onto your stomach. You scramble to crawl away but Neteyam’s plants a foot on your ass and that is unfortunately all it takes to pin you down. Your hands are snatched next, forced together behind your back as the ripped stripes of your own shirt are used as makeshift rope to tie your wrists together.

Something about him using your own personal clothing to keep you bound for him has your legs kicking out fiercely. It won’t do much damage even if you manage to hit him, but there needs to be an outlet for your anger. You need to feel like there is still some wreckage for you to inflict. The last tiny shred of power that you cling to for dear life.

Neteyam isn’t in the mood to put up with your outbursts. Much like a fresh kill from his hunting trips he keeps you pinned and makes quick work of binding you imobile. The action is so well rehearsed and instinctual in fact that he already moves on to his next task of destroying your shorts.

Shrieks and small clawing fingers are simply background ambience for the Olo’eyktan as he works. Surprisingly the small tawtute sized Na’vi clothing is not exempt from the male’s destructive hands. They too become nothing more than rolling beads and scraps of fabric falling to the floor.

Your string of bloody curses are only temporarily interrupted by your own gasp when Neteyam takes a seat on the bed and throws you over his knee in one swift move. Kicking is no longer an option for your rage when he swings one leg over both of yours. Blood rushes to your head but even dizziness can’t stop your violent outrage.

However, it appears a cracking smack to your upturned ass can.

The pain doesn’t ripple forward until a few moments after your shock has subsided. Neteyam has always had creative ways of punishing you but this is different. You’d figured that he would never lay a hand on you after all that he has droned on and on about how important it is to protect a fragile thing like you.

But another hit accompanies the first and this time you can’t hold back your small squeak.

“Just as I thought.” He spanks you again, his hand mercilessly hitting both cheeks with every strike. “You’ve been practically begging for a firmer hand.” The cry that the next rapid three slaps pull from you is one that you don’t recognize.

“Pretty little things like you still struggle to remember their place.”

“Stop! Stop!” You shriek, trapped legs still fruitlessly sprawling for escape.

“Don’t worry, little gift.” He squeezes one of your pink cheeks after this last spank. “That’s what I am here for. I won’t let your silly little tawtute tendencies keep you away from me.”

It doesn’t take long for the color of your backside to match your face as the blood drains to your head. Neteyam is persistent, hardly batting an eye at your cries and shrieks. From cursing to death threats, none of your spewed venom makes him flinch. If anything you manage to catch his small smirk when you twist to glare up at him. You don’t make that mistake again when you find this behavior only rewards you with condescending coos from the Na’vi.

“That’s a good girl. Let all those nasty words go.” He purrs, heavy hand never letting up on your poor bottom.

It’s this praise that has your mouth clamping shut. You hold back any and every sound you can as your ass takes a beating. Which is not a lot when the Na’vi male has unfathomable strength and your backside already feels like flames could erupt from it at any moment.

“Oh pet, I’ve hardly even touched you and you’re already blushing so pretty for me.” Neteyam hums in delight, hand roaming over your burning ass like an art piece just waiting to be admired properly.

Hardly even touched you?

Is this just his way of being an ass or are you truly that far from the finish line?

You jolt when one finger slips between the crack of your cheeks, teasing over your hole gently. A sound caught between a scream and whimper erupts from you without thought. Bound hands flatten and flail to cover the untouched area but Neteyam simply chuckles and lets his own hand retreat.

“Mawey, tiyawn.” Neteyam pats your backside softly, almost in a casual reassuring manner. “Another day.”

It’s hard to say what is more humiliating. Being bound and turned over the Olo’eyktan’s knee like a naughty child or the wetness trickling from your pussy at the feel of his teasing fingers in a place you’ve never dared let anyone else explore before.

Pain is a great distraction from your humiliation. So much so that it eventually motivates you to dash pride to the side and begin your pleading.

“A-ah Neteyam! I’m sorry! I’m sorry…eh-ah I-I’ll be good!” It’s not even clear what you are trying to say anymore. Your mouth runs on autopilot, throwing out any line of remorse in hopes of one doing the job. “I ngh-ah didn’t mean to! I won’t run! Can’t take anymo- ah! Neteyam!”

He reigns his hits to warm the underside of your thighs too, moving between that vulnerable area and your ass in such an erratic way that it is impossible to anticipate where the next will land.

Plea after plea is thrown out but resembles nothing more than garbled desperation, nothing that can pass as a full sentence.

However, one call catches his attention.

“Olo’eyktan please!”

The sound of slapping skin stops.

Tears continue to plunge down your cheeks even without the constant spanking, your ass burns and tingles in shock. The tuft of his tail poruses over your naked thighs, sending a sensation both painful and ticklish.

“Repeat, pet.”

“Wha-what?” You stammer, voice thick with tears.

“What did you say?” That large hand comes down once more like a crack of lightning.

“AH! Olo’eyktan O-Olo’eyktan please please please. No more no more!”

He smooths over your knotted hair, pushing it away from your sweaty temple and tear stained face. It’s tempting to look away from his soft gaze but intuition tells you to let him see the trembling state he has left you in. Let him witness how pitiful and distraught a simple spanking has made you be.

“I….I’m sorry, Olo’eyktan.”

Neteyam smiles like one would at a lover, a tender pride lacing his lips.

“You’re learning, pet.”

Putting batteries in that small remote was a mistake. A ridiculous useless mistake that now leaves you standing on shaky legs. The pink vibrator that has resided in your nightstand drawer dutifully on hand for years is now the source of your torment.

Well, maybe not the source per say.

No, the true origin of this humiliation stares back at you with knowing eyes and swatting tail, his large hand making that tiny remote look like a children’s toy. The vibrator buzzes inside of you on the lowest setting, but that relief can only last for so long with the way Neteyam enjoys jumping between the different levels.

Every last shredded piece of your Na’vi and human clothing lays back on the floor of your old bedroom. The only savior of your decency is Neteyam’s cloak that he had thrown around your shoulders. With the size difference this cloak acts more like a dress and therefore gives you more coverage than you’ve had in a week yet somehow leaves you feeling more vulnerable than ever before. Trembling fingers never stray from the seams of the cloak, keeping it wrapped around you tightly as the crowds of humans and Na’vi continue to pass you.

Neteyam has left you with one of the other Na’vi warriors but never out of his sight. It’s a miracle that your hands were cut loose in the first place but perhaps that is another sick joke the Olo’eyktan plays on you. He knows that you won’t run. He knows you can’t run. His attention and promised consequences for misbehavior are more than enough to keep you tucked in his pocket.

That and of course his control over the rippling vibrations that torture your pussy.

The nearest warrior is sure to be noticing your frazzled state by now. At least he has the decency to hide his interest, unlike another Na’vi that watched from the sidelines. Lo’ak, leaned against one of the hoverships like it’s a random Tuesday afternoon, watches with a small smirk and perked ears. If Neteyam notices, he doesn’t seem to have a problem with it because Lo’ak is left unbothered in his ogling.

The tempo increases, the vibrator now picking a pattern of random pulses that bash against your sweet spot. Bottom lip bleeding now from your biting, it’s a struggle to keep your moans at bay. With the heavy machinery moving and hundreds of Na’vi and humans passing surely there must be enough noise to block out any degrading sounds you make. But you can’t take that risk. You’ve made the mistake of underestimating the Na’vi’s enhanced hearing before and that is what has landed you here.

Neteyam twirls the tiny remote between his fingers like a fidget toy as another Na’vi warrior comes to report.

You start to commiserate the loss of that ridiculous human sized loincloth Neteyam made you because at least then there was some fabric barrier to hide your wetness. Now, the thick Pandoran air runs up the cloak and over your soaked thighs and cunt. It reminds you constantly how pathetic you have become as orgasm after orgasm has escaped your grip. Even worse it reminds you how easy it is to carry that aroused scent through the breeze for all Na’vi to detect. At that rate, worrying about your noises is the least of your concerns.

Lo’ak reloads the machine gun with practiced hands, moving with muscle memory so he can continue to stare and send silent messages your way. No doubt he is theorizing on what exactly his brother has done to diminish you to such a state. His eyes dance with those ideas, the little quirk of his lips telling you just how creative and vial his thoughts have turned.

Another level up and this time it is Neteyam’s eyes that have you squirming. Your impending orgasm coils tighter and tighter with every passing second and you're so desperate to find some way to release this energy that your bare feet begin fidgeting against the concrete. It’s almost like a little dance, one that has Lo’ak laughing under his breath.

It stops.

You breathe.

There is some sort of commotion off in the distance. Not one that you can truly pin down the source of but you do notice the way Neteyam nods as a Na’vi female says something to him. With a wave she is dismissed and then the Olo’eyktan saunters off. Although slightly worried over the trouble, you are grateful for the respite.

And then a nightmare unfurls before your eyes.

Instead of marching to the issue, Neteyam takes a pit stop to converse with his younger brother. Lo’ak’s tail whips in the wind at whatever is whispered in his ear but the real horror comes when that traitor of a remote is handed over to the younger Sully male.

You are seconds away from stomping over there and crushing that pink little weapon before the other male can wield it. However, your dutiful guard places a hand on your shoulder after just one step. His eyes remain locked forward but the warning is enough as his hand retreats. You are still being watched.

With one last glance your way, Neteyam has the audacity to give you, his little pet, a warm smile before leaving you in the hands of his brother.

Lo’ak swings the gun around to his back in favor of playing with his new toy. Every dark and viscous fiber left within you is channeled into the glare you give him. It should say everything that your lips can not.

Don’t you dare.

Don’t you fucking dare.

Now would be a good time to look into Na’vi curses, anything you could betrix upon him for what he is about to do, because of course Lo’ak won’t back down. If anything that fire in your eyes lights his own delight and has him sitting down and bracing forward. Forearms resting on his thighs he clocks your every movement.

This is sure to be the best entertainment the bastard has had in a long time.

He savors the passing moments of anticipation. Never backing down from the ultimate seething looks you give him. Finally a crash sounds and that distraction is right when Lo’ak sets the vibrator to high. From zero to one hundred, pleasure rackets through you like a shock wave. The force is so much that it temporarily makes you stumble on your feet. The other guard wordlessly steadies you back into place.

Lo’ak’s grin is feral.

This silent battle slips between your fingers so quickly it is hard to comprehend, because all that can register in your brain is how fast you are hurtling towards an orgasm. After Neteyam’s denial your body is high strung and ready to take any sensation as fuel to push you over the edge. Nails digging into the soft fabric of Neteyam’s cloak, pleasure rockets higher and higher until only the whites of your eyes are visible.

Knees bowing inward, ecstasy is finally yours.

There isn’t enough energy left to question why Lo’ak let you reach your high. Instead you focus on riding that wave while simultaneously keeping upright.

That persistent buzzing against your sweet spot continues until your nerves are short circuiting. The pleasure turns to overstimulation and you give Lo’ak a look that alerts him of this change.

His amusement tells you that he already knows your predicament but his thumb remains far from the off button.

Pathetic noises now bubble up your throat without restraint as pleasure ebbs into pain. It switches back and forth until another release is on the verge of consuming your being. The guard next to you doesn’t say anything when he helps to sit on the cold ground.

The second orgasm has a bitter taste to it but your greedy pussy clenches around the toy all the same. It’s almost too bad that Neteyam decided not to gag you because at least that would muffle your cries as you rock down onto the toy. Lo’ak gulps at the sight, pupils blown wide when the first glimmer of tears scrape down your cheeks.

Regardless, he shows no mercy as he takes in the show with undivided interest.

Vaguely you register the bustle and commotion around you as different Na’vi and humans rush to and fro, giant machinery finally backing into place but they are only background noise to your third orgasm.

Your body is caught between delight and despair with every passing second. When you are close to reaching your peak for the fourth time your body is resistant to get you there all the way. The intense buzzing in your pussy is driving you wild but still not enough to drag out another orgasm after being too overstimulated. Despite the soreness that emanates from your wrecked hole, your clit throbs in agony. Begging to be touched. To be licked. Pinched. Flicked. God, anything at this point.

Memories of Neteyam doing just that surface, pushing you closer and closer to another dumbing climax and yet only serve as a reminder of how you are not getting the treatment you so desperately need. Pride is dashed to the side, you’ll worry about the consequences of grinding onto the toy in public later.

Lo’ak’s hands roughly brush over his inner thighs and it draws your attention. The taunt muscle and smooth skin of those thighs would surely brush over your intimate flesh so perfectly. He would probably help you too, hands clawing at your hips as they urge you back and forth over the area. Even more so, the younger brother would not be able to pass up the opportunity to show his power over the situation, muscles flexing to tease your clit oh so beautifully.

You’re not sure when Lo’ak became telepathic but he grips his knees and gives you a look that says he knows every dark desire that plagues your brain. His nails press into that soft flesh and drag until there are pretty red marks left behind. If you crawled over there sweetly, would he let you ride? Maybe if you healed those red marks with open mouthed kisses and kitten licks.

Unaroused you would be ashamed of this train of thought but she is so far gone now.

The only thing your poor abused cunt is begging for was attention. Anything to get this awful mix of heaven and hell to bleed into euphoric release and rest.

The only thing stopping you from reaching down and finishing the job yourself is the assurance that Lo’ak would snip all pleasure in a bud at the sight of any touching.

The area has been cleared of invaders. Na’vi begin to make their way off to the hills before take off but you are none the wiser. Caught in your own little bubble you don’t even notice when a sudden shadow blocks out the sun. That is until, large warm hands slip under the cloak and skate over your spread legs.

Such a simple touch has never made you whimper more.

Neteyam’s accent is thicker now, words heavy enough to hardly understand the meaning as he coos at you. “There’s my sweet pet. Little slut just wants to come again, don’t you?”

His fingers force your legs to spread even wider. Lo’ak’s stares as if his glare could heat up enough to burn through that cloak.

With such delicacy it makes you want to scream, Neteyam uses two fingers to part your pussy lips and expose your pulsing clit. The other hand slithers down to rest on your thigh as you try to buck against the air.

“Come for your Olo’eyktan, pet,” He growls and with the other hand he begins delivering rapid little taps to your clit. It’s humiliating how tiny the gesture that puts you over the edge is but you paint the toy white regardless.

When the vibrator finally takes a rest you are too far lost in your own little world. Neteyam swaddles you in the cloak and carries you in his arm as you bury into his chest. And conveniently, when you are tucked back in the forest there is no awareness left in you to recognize the sound of launching ships.

As always interaction and feedback not only means the world to me but also as a great motivator for writing and updating<3

Taglist: @pandoraslxna@neteyamssyulang@tallulah477@criticallybella@sullybrothersmate@lilghostiequinni@chershire23@lala-1516@teyamshuman@yawnetu@puddle-nerd@ratchetprime211@avatargirly @chocolatechocobo91 @kariz-stark@bunnscoffe @avatarwifey @universal-s1ut@witchsprit@heart-an0n @riri-is-a-girlie @rivatar@minnory@ikeyniofthetayrangi@ilovehobi101@spicymayyo@v4mp1rr3@nilsavatar@bambithewriter@quicktosimp@itchaboi-itchyboy@thehoneymushroomhealer @ilytulipse @witchsprit@imwutim@crazy4books1@thegirlwholoveslivesfanfiction@danniackerman@dayyzlol@justabite7 @krispyjellyfishkitty @neteyamtesuli @sakurayuki8655-blog @deadpool15 @valeriinee @leaveitbythewave @aqxllo @mxnygn @crazed-flower @crimsonroses666 @property-of-neteyam @rejectedbytheempty

Let me know if I missed you. It's getting a littly tricky to keep track of everyone haha

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moneyndior · 2 months

Text

୧ ׅ𖥔 ۫ young, dumb, broke high school kids⋄ 𓍯

ᝬ 🐈‍⬛ 𖠵 𓄹

…in which, camp half blood unfortunately gets their hands on twt + instagram.

tags/warnings: percy jackson x reader, tv!percy, percy being obsessed with reader, clarisse being petty, making fun of percy and luke out of love, big sister figure!clarisse, chris x clarisse mention once,

ೃauthor notes⁀➷: i might make a pt.2 or make one with luke because these sre so much fun and so silly!! ignore how i was supposed to post the erm luke x ares!reader but this was tew fun

—

ynisbetter;

…playing, what you need, the weeknd.

—making fun of luke is a full time job and i’m fully committed 🤍

liked by, percy..jackson, chasingannabeth and others.

lukecastellann why do you do this to me

↳percy..jackson can you get out of y/n’s comment section

↳lukecastellann do i know you

percy..jackson you look gongus

↳percy..jackson gorges

↳chasingannabeth How did you pull Y/n?

percy..jackson y/n come home dinners getting cold

↳groverinthewoods GET HIM OUTTA THE KITCHEN😭😭‼️‼️

↳bestla.rue WHO TF LET HIM BACK IN🗣️

—

percy..jackson;

…playing, love me by elvis presley.

—SHE THE TYPE OF GIRL YOU GO TO WAR FOR‼️💯

tagged: ynisbetter.

ynisbetter percy stop omfg

↳ynisbetter please dont play with me im gna cry

↳percy..jackson NO WAIT IM SORRY WAIT WHAT

bestla.rue i didn’t give you the green light to post y/n on the tl percy 😒

↳percy..jackson LEMME POST MY GIRL😭😭 PLEASEEEEEEEEE

lukecastellann zeus strike me down right now

↳percy..jackson LLLL IMAGINE NOT HAVING A BEAUTIFUL GIRLFRIEND😂😂

↳lukecastellann look outside percy

↳percy..jackson wait what

—

bestla.rue;

…playing, fucc valentine, honcho moonk.

—HAPPY COUPLES PISS ME OFF

tagged: ynisbetter, percy..jackson.

lukecastellann can i hear an amen

↳chrisishim AMEN BROTHER

↳lukecastellann you arent included in this💀 i see the way u look at her.

↳chrisishim can you NOT.

chasingannabeth Percy has that photo of her in his phone case lol

↳percy..jackson SNITCH!! BOOO🍅🍅

ynisbetter omfg send these to me

↳bestla.rue no. hope this helps🤍

—

ynisbetter’s story;

-> the silly??!!!

*bestla.rue replied: OH BUT YOU ARENT TO BUSY TO HANG OUT WITH HIM I SEE HOW IT IS🥱

ynisbetter: YOU ASKED ME TO HANG OUT AT 2AM??

bestla.rue: AND‼️

—

*chasingannabeth replied: Can you come and get me from my cabin? I wanna hang out too 😔😔

ynisbetter: absolutely i would go to war for you

—

*percy..jackson replied: can u not post the worst photos of me😞

ynisbetter: can i not show my love percy😖☹️

percy..jackson: DONT MAKE ME FEEL BAD

#—PERCY JACKSON #percy jackson x reader #pjo x reader #percy jackson smau #percy jackson x you #pjo smau #i love him<3 #percy jackson the man you are

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alyakthedorklord · 1 year

Text

Chiroptophobia: the Fear of Bats.

Bruce Wayne is Scared of Bats. This is a Canon Fact.

In a difference from canon, Batman pretends to actually BE a bat man.

(Again, “Loading and Aspect Ratio” by JUBE514 situation with fake wings. Please go read it I love it so much.)

Bruce turns himself into a physical manifestation of his personal worst nightmares, and sets out to be a street cryptid. People see him flinching from bright lights and loud noises (he hasn’t slept in three days and he really hates guns) twitching weirdly (testing his wings function/stimming) not fully understanding human social niceties (you cannot tell me this man isn't Autistic) and, duh, wings, and go ah yes this being is Inhuman.

However, people KNOW Brucie Wayne™ is petrified of bats. There was an incident at a party when one flew through a window, another at a zoo, there was this one time Manbat showed up and he practically teleported away. No one saw him for a whole month, even after Batman had captured Manbat. (He got injured in the fight.)

By extension, this means that Bruce Wayne is afraid of Batman. Just- absolutely terrified of him. No ones seen them in the same place. Ever. Bruce Wayne actually publicly refuses to even believe in the cryptid for YEARS past when he's already been proven to exist.

When the Justice League gets called in to protect Bruce and his smattering of children from some plot (batman conspicuously absent, despite Gotham being his territory) Bruce straight up tells the league that he doesn’t believe in Batman, and he feels much safer with “real heroes” rather than “a urban legend spawned from overdramatic furries and gang wars.”

The justice league is, obviously, confused.

Certified little shits Dick, Jason, and Tim, (because we’re going with JUBE514’s canon and jason doesn’t die they’re all brothers f off-)

ANYWAYS: Certified Little Shits Dick, Jason, and Tim, ready for chaos/solidifying secret identities: “Don’t worry! We believe in batman! We saw him!” :D

They then proceed to tell the justice league that Bruce HAS met Batman, but he has a phobia of bats, so when Batman saved them at a gala Bruce screamed so loud and shrill he threw off the bat-hearing and then punched batman in the face so hard he knocked him out cold, grabbed then-baby Jason and ran. (Nightwing and the second Robin had to HEROICALLY rescue a dazed Batman, Dick saw it with his own eyes!)

Bruce was so scared of the bat coming to take revenge that he jumped at every shadow for a whole month. Why, Jason, (who was younger then) had slept in Bruce's bed to keep him safe! (Dick is crooning about his cute little brother. Jason, who is hitting his growth spurt and not a little kid anymore, is infinitely embarrassed.) Right now, Brucie has settled into firmly denying Batman’s entire existence so that he can sleep soundly at night.

“Why is he so scared of bats?” The Justice League is wondering. Oh, they are so glad they asked!

“Alfred told us a story once,” Dick says, eyes wide and innocent as he prepares to lie through his fucking teeth, “that when Bruce was little, really little, he got trapped in a cave filled with bats, and his dad had to come rescue him. Apparently, Little Bruce had been crying about a massive bat, even bigger than he was, with glowing red eyes and human hands and (gasp) wait oh my goodness gracious what if that was the BATMAN :0”

“The baby batman.” Jadon adds.

“Batboy?” Tim wonders.

“Alfred, do you think Bruce met Batman when they were little?” Dick asks.

“I believe,” Alfred “the greatest enabler” Pennyworth hums, offering fresh baked scones to thier gleeful audience, “that Master Bruce referred to what he saw as ‘the bat king’ and reported seeing him outside his window several times over the years.”

“Maybe it really was him! Will you ask Batman for us?” Tim asks, already planning to hack the watchtower cameras and set up some popcorn with his brothers.

The Justice League, who have learned more about the Batman in one conversation than they have over MANY years of working together, tell the Wayne children that it will be their Genuine Pleasure to quiz batman on his interactions with BRUCIE WAYNE who has, apparently, laid batman out cold with one punch.

Alfred adds on that he personally thinks the Batman is being rather courteous to Master Bruce, as “bat king” sightings were after “difficult times” and he doesn’t come near the manor otherwise, as robin had been the one to return some family heirlooms that one time they were stolen. He calls the batman and his robins “polite young gentlemen” and then leaves.

But now the gears are turning in the justice leagues heads. Batman? Courteous? Polite? Batman is not Courteous or Polite. Not unless something else is going on.

Now. From their point of view. Batman lives in the cave systems under the richest houses in Gotham, Phantom of the Opera style, hiding his meta form (because this batman is playing cryptid really well. Maybe he was a mutant baby of some Rich Gothamites, who threw him into the caves in shame!) He’s been watching Bruce Wayne, likely as he struggled with the highly reported on demise of his parents, seeing the effects that crime had on the boy that fell into his cave all those years ago. Batman has always been so protective of children, so hateful of guns, obviously the Wayne tragedy is part of what motivates him. He loves Gotham dearly, territorial of it to the point of keeping other heroes out, and yet he breaks that rule here, for Gotham's prince, solely for Bruce’s comfort.

Bruce, another person who obviously loves the city of Gotham just as much, putting millions into charity and relief efforts. Who is clearly very protective of his children, even if he usually has no spine, to the point of attacking his greatest fear to keep then safe, and good enough to land a hit, even. (Bruce Wayne is also considerably attractive.)

Its all so clear to the Justice League: Batman is madly in love with Bruce Wayne. Has been for years. To the point of watching him sleep, on occasion. How very tragic! Batman, in love with someone he can never be with! Not only would it paint a massive target on Bruce’s back if they ever did get together- there’s no questioning what Gotham villains would do if they discovered this, (and denying himself love out of an attempt to keep others safe is EXACTLY the kind of self-sacrificing nonsense Batman would pull) But Batman can’t even truly see the man he’s in love with without Brucie running away in terror! Well, the poor guy… how sad…

This conclusion can be supported by the following evidence-

Batman’s first appearance being right after Bruce Wayne returned to Gotham. Was the bat following him to protect him in those missing years? Or maybe he decided to clean up the city now that his beloved had returned?

Batman always being seen near where Bruce is. He’s never once been at the watchtower when Bruce has a public appearance- he must be watching over him, a silent guardian in case someone gets it in their head to kidnap Gotham’s Prince.

Batman insisting that Bruce is innocent in a corporate scheme, despite evidence to the contrary. (Hes right in the end, of course, but they’ve never seen him ignore evidence so clear.)

Batman casually referencing Wayne Tech/Foundation inner workings- he keeps an eye on them, of course. (If he can’t be close to the object of his affections, the league reasons, of course he’d make sure that Bruce’s company and projects are on the right track)

Nightwing, when asked, confirms the Bruce Punching Batman story. He says “honestly I think B was impressed! Caught him off guard!” (Since when does Batman lower his guard? Only when he’d be… distracted, perhaps…)

Superman saves Bruce, who thanks him with a kiss on the cheek. Later, justice league was teasing Clark, batman huffs and leaves the room. He’s CLEARLY jealous! Superman feels just awful!

Batman inexplicably knowing social dances/high society manners- he must have learned by watching (stalking) bruce! He can navigate high profile talk if he wants to, he just doesn’t want to most of the time. but if the situation calls for it he can talk like the Richest of Pricks in a way that only comes with observation.

Batman bristling when some of the league members start making Comments on Brucie Wayne’s Physical Attributes. (Jealousy? Defensiveness? Perhaps… embarrassment at GL’s detailed explanation on what he’d do with a chance in bed with Brucie.)

Batman absolutely freezing up when confronted with any of the above evidence. (He’s trying SO HARD not to laugh/go tell his kids)

Dick/Jason being big enough to wear the Bat-wings rather than thier own and be convincing- they save Bruce, though the man passes out (from fear? Blood loss from an injury? Perhaps- he is faking) and Dick/Jason, either out of genuine concern for their dad or general “how can i stir the pot” chaos, gently strokes his hair away from his face in an act of compassion that the cameras just so happen to catch. (There’s a few tears shed in the justice league- poor batman! He can’t be with his love!)

The robins (in both identities) telling the justice league that they've seen batman watching him.

“oh yeah he does background checks on aaaaaall bruces conquests. Had a conniption when brucie found a mafia boss that one time.”

“And when he found out Bruce and Two-face had a fling!”

(The league notes that often, if a criminal gets too close to Brucie, they’re put away not long after. B is usually collecting evidence in his civilian ID. But it looks like angry Batman wanted them to get the hell away from his mans.)

The Justice League is swooning over this tragic, forbidden love story. Batman is a little creepy but hey. He apparently grew up in a cave system. Its a wonder he's as well adjusted as he is. Batman has their sympathy, he seems less unflappable/untouchable, they’re a little more understanding with him now. Superman is all too happy to be a rebound, if needed. There are magic users offering glamour spells. Green Lantern is making exposure therapy innuendos.

The robins can’t believe how lucky they got. They’re def grounded but B can’t be too mad bc his secret identity is FUKIN SET.

Alfred is rather proud of Batman's new nickname in the league being “the bat king” and keeps sending batman along with cookies. The league thinks Batman is checking up on bruce with his butler. Its a mess.

Eventually, Batman loses a bet to one of his kids. Committing to the Bit with an exasperated sigh (he’s definitely not having fun, shut up jason.)

He admits to his crush.

#cryptid batman #brucie wayne #wing fic #justice league #dc universe #dc prompt #when the league finds out they’re almost offended #b just sheugs and say they drew their own conclusions #also his robins and alfred were having fun #bruce wayne #batman #bruce wayne x batman #superbat

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whispereons · 7 months

Text

Oracle!Reader Part 17

Masterlist - Part 1, Part 16, Part 18

PSA: I'm going to go through my followers and report + block porn bots. Porn bots look like users who have nothing posted. So if you don't want to be blocked please put at least one post saying that you are human.

Warning! This has your good old violence! This is a SAGAU imposter au so this to be expected.

The ice in your calves throbbed as spikes of pain fried the nerves every time you shifted into a better position. That's not even counting how the arrow in your chest jostled and wedged deeper into your skin.

"Let's start with some easy questions, yeah? Like your name, date of birth, and occupation."

You wished Yelan would just ask the important questions only. It would make your life so much easier. Who knows what information you could give her here that unknowingly connects to what they know about the 'Creator'.

Yelan's expression turns neutral before she steps closer. Your body tenses in preparation before she grabs your hair to pull your head up. Hissing in pain, you glare at her with animosity.

"Don't overestimate your body, Y/N." She drawl's as if speaking to a child. "I could just remove this pretty little mask and bring you back to Liyue for those with... more experience to handle."

Was it a natural thing for Hydro users to threaten you with torture? The thought makes you wanna laugh but you gasp in pain instead as she releases your hair harshly.

You didn't have time to be a smartass. Your mask being removed was the worst thing that could happen. The only question was, should you admit to being an Oracle or not?

"My name, as you already know, is Y/N. I don't have a last name, or maybe I do and I don't remember it. Same situation with my birthday, I just celebrate it whenever I feel like it."

Genshin always sends you a gift in the mail when it's your birthday. It's a good guess that everyone knows your birthday, having the same birthday would be suspicious. What if it's like your face in which no one else can share the same birthday with you? Far-fetched but better safe than sorry.

"I'm an adventurer who signed up a few days ago. I have my handbook and commission list to prove it if you want to check."

There was a chance she knew about your Oracle job from when you had to stay at the Teahouse, but you won't offer that bit of information unless she specifically asks for it. Far too many of your own victims on Earth screwed themselves over when they revealed things only to learn you were shooting in the dark.

"Quite the convenient story. No last name or set date of birth means you must be from one of the villages. Name it."

Yelan gets comfortable resting against a tree as Shenhe stands close to you with a cold glare. The questions were still easy but you didn't want to be stuck here any longer. You needed an escape.

"I was born in Inazuma, one of the less-tamed islands called Kannzaku. But after the recent war, all the people that were still living either died or left. I chose to leave as well."

Yelan hums at that, you aren't sure if she truly believes it or if she's just making a mental note to look into it later.

"Then how did you manage to catch the Alcor of all ships to bring you here? They aren't one to take passengers along easily."

Has she been watching that early on or did she trace your path that far back? If so, she may even gain information about your time in Inazuma. Best to keep everything aligned with the most public knowledge.

"The Yashiro Commission helped me find a ship. I don't see how my upbringing in Inazuma has to do with whatever reason you have for attacking me."

Flexing your feet, you try to adapt to the pain. Yelan nor Shenhe were going to let you go even if you did answer everything correctly. That was a fact just based on how much trouble you gave them.

Yelan keeps a watchful eye on you as she stays silent. You know this tactic, you've used it before. Staying silent to make your hostage squirm and anger till they burst. That, or slowly die in place from any wounds.

This wasn't a problem for you. Every second you stood there in silence was just more and more time for you to get used to the pain. The arrow was too deep to remove, you would bleed out and become weaker so it'll have to stay stuck inside your skin.

Yelan and you could have gone all day, but Shenhe wasn't nearly as patient or stubborn.

"Ask your question and finish your job already, Yelan. If you take any longer then I'll just exterminate them." Shenhe moves to stand directly in front of you with her weapon raised.

She points it directly at Yelan. "And if you try to stop me, I'll kill you too."

Seems they aren't as in sync as you originally thought.

Yelan sighs and moves from her spot. It seems even she knows better than to trifle with the bomb in the shape of a crane. The grass crunches beneath Yelan's heels as the trinkets on her jingle.

Lifelines wrap around your wrists and waist and she pulls you forward. Nails dig into your skin through her gloves making you bite your tongue in slight pain. The pretty azure color is coated with crimson as emerald eyes stare into your soul.

"What's giving you the confidence to claim to be the Creator's oracle? If you don't repent and shed this flimsy mask, the Qixing will have you sacrificed in the city's center."

Your heart stops at those words as flashes of the sacrifices you witnessed in Inazuma come to mind. Taking off your mask would get you killed, but not taking it off would also get you killed. Torn between laughing and crying, you hated the fact that once again you were stuck in a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situation.

Frowning at the strange expression on your face and the lack of confession, Yelan sighs with frustration and even a bit of hatred. “Not willing to speak even now, huh? Then my job is nearly done. Ningguang can deal with you instead, I’ll just reap my share of the rewards after you die.”

Patting your now bloody cheek condescendingly, she turns away from you. Her lips can be seen moving from her side profile but you could care less about what she's saying.

All you can focus on is the feeling of being talked down to. Being treated like a child, being treated like an idiot. The inner lining of your cheek begins to ache from how hard you're biting on it.

Specific personas you've created and used in your work would include ditzy and dumb acts. The patronizing tone they would speak to you with was annoying but tolerable. But this? This?!

Lips curled into a snarl, you look up at the woman with a boiling glare matching your equally hot temper. Yelan's features seem to continuously morph and switch with a man who would speak to you in that exact same demeaning way.

"Where the hell do you get off speaking to me like this?"

Yelan shuts her mouth but doesn't move her snobbish eyes off your form. Shenhe holds her polearm tighter as she keeps her eyes on you. Well aware of just how stupid, rash, and careless your next actions are, your brain tries to calm down.

But the moment you lift your bloody chin to look up, all you can see is condescending eyes taunting you.

"What the fuck is giving YOU the confidence to indirectly call yourself extraordinary by calling your deceased teammates 'ordinary folk'?! You only got to your position from the charity and sacrifices of other people!"

Breathing heavily from the anger and strain from yelling, you wipe the blood on your chin away. You were giving it your all to survive and weasel your way out of this situation. That's what you have done all throughout your time in Teyvat.

It wasn't fair, it wasn't right, it shouldn't be possible that all your efforts would be for naught from just one person. Everything you've worked at all this time, gone, just because Yelan and Ningguang couldn't mind their own fucking business.

"You can inflate your ego all you want with clever schemes and working solo but that doesn't take away from the fact that you would be dead without everyone around you. Your ancestry of heroes, Ningguang's patience and willingness to wait for you to train and move on from your friend. Even the lessons you learned on how you aren't invincible didn't seem to click until you lost your whole team!"

Grinning widely with malice and blood staining your teeth and lips crimson, you finished your jab. "You know? The same team you basically disowned and dissociated yourself from after they died. After all, you’d rather isolate yourself instead of properly acknowledging your team's talent and appreciate the life they lived no matter how short!"

Your mouth felt dry and all you could taste was copper. The shards in your calves were slowly melting making your legs. A vast contrast to the burning anger you harbored. But it seems you aren't the only one feeling this way.

Yelan hasn't moved from her spot but the look she has on her face is clear as day. Her neutral and taunting smile has dissolved into a murderous expression. Viridian eyes sharpen almost like an arrow and gritted teeth grind together. Your blood stains her blue gloves much like how you successfully stained her invincible reputation.

As good as it felt to get back at her, the slightest bit of guilt plagued you. That blow concerning her teammates was low, even if it was true. It's a bitter truth that she probably still struggles with. Living knowing that someone had to be sacrificed for your life pushed you to the brink more than once. Even still, you can't find it in yourself to take back those words, to apologize.

After all, you could never disregard the help and place your dad had in your life even with his early death.

The Hydro vision on Yelan's side glows as she takes long strides to your trapped form. No longer summoning her bow with flair, she points it at you. Bracing yourself with bent knees, you flex your fingers preparing to summon your sickle and escape the disadvantageous position.

"GRAH!"

A huge leaping rocky creature almost flattens Yelan who swiftly dodges by jumping backward.

"GRAW!" What you can now identify as a Geovishap roars loudly and slams his hulking fist onto the ground. The impact sends Yelan flying through the air and the ice trapping your feet shatters.

Not even allowed a second to enjoy your newfound freedom, Shenhe lunges either polearm poised at the ready. Grinning, your sickle clashes with her weapon as you shift to a more comfortable position.

Fighting both women would be impossible for you, they've trained for years. But it was still within your limits to defend and escape from one. Thanks to the Geovishap, you now have been granted that possibility.

The lingering shards of ice in your calves keep the blood somewhat clogged but the blood dribbling out down your ankle is uncomfortable. Ignoring it to the best of your abilities, you dig your shoes into the ground as your sickle repeatedly blocks her attacks.

The spear's minor side curve gets hooked onto your sickle leading to a stand-off. Planting your feet deeper into the ground, you focus on pushing against Shenhe as she does the same. Your arm strains with the force needed as Shenhe's full power begins to overpower you.

Not that you weren't expecting that.

Shenhe fought a god as a child and would have won if Cloud Retainer hadn't cut it short. She grew up in these mountains fighting, training, and eating whatever she was given. Cloud Retainer didn't raise a child, she groomed a soldier.

Your wounds ache as your body is pushed back. Inhuman strength wasn't something you ever encountered on Earth. This wasn't the city where you could pull a dirty trick and get away. Wasn't there anything else you could do?

Perhaps it was the determination you felt to stand your ground. Or maybe it was the desperation you felt to escape and live. You couldn't be completely sure as power mingled with your flesh, giving you a burst of energy.

The air grows cold and the ground shakes beneath your feet. The Electro wrapping around your sickle crackles louder, nearly masking the creaking of the ground. Geo petrifies the ground as it travels from your feet to hers.

A dark umber-colored stone traps her feet with cracks of topaz. Shenhe frowns and tries to rip her feet out but is stunned when it doesn't work. The petrify only moves to consume her body faster.

Knowing that you must be the only reason for the Geo, you take advantage of the newfound power. Breaking the grapple, you move out of her polearms range. Her braids loosen as she tries to lunge at you even with her torso completely petrified.

In some last-ditch effort to kill you, Shenhe holds her polearm in one hand and prepares to throw it at you. Not a moment sooner, the petrify entraps that hand locking it in place.

"Don't run away, demon!" Shenhe shouts in fury as her braid loosens. Her face is permanently etched as a harsh scowl and furrowed brows when the Geo overcomes her completely.

Not wanting to waste the precious and limited time you have, you turn on your heels and run away. In a split decision, you run to the left, the same direction where you first met Shenhe at that hilichurl camp.

Greenery and foliage are trampled on as you push past the burning pain. You pass the threshold of the stone and a large thud catches your attention from behind you.

Curious, you look back to see the Geovishap be pierced by Hydro projectiles. The blood and water splatter and mix on the ground as the Geovishap collapses. A weak gurgle of a roar is all that could be heard.

Glazed eyes holding no consciousness, no life, stare at your wide, sympathetic ones before crumbling into dust. A different pair of wrathful green eyes stare back at you instead.

There's no time to teleport. You couldn't fight in this state. Running was your sole option and your body moved on its own.

The river water dampens your shoes as you run, and the moonlight filters through the leaves of the trees above you. Slimes peer at you curiously as you avoid running into them.

The only thing you could properly focus on was not tripping and not getting hit by the arrows raining down on you.

Between your honed instincts and Teyvat’s warnings, you manage to dodge the vast majority. Yelan wasn't in the position she is today without mastering her archery.

Pain and most likely a bruise bloom when her Hydro-infused arrow hits your shoulder. It's not deep so you quickly pull it out before it gets lodged like the one in your chest.

The chase is intense as your ragged breaths nearly mask the sound of her heels following you. More arrows cut your clothes and graze your skin.

The sight of the red staining the cloth makes bitterness spread and fester deep within you.

Just why couldn't you bleed gold?

Now in Nantianmen, you pass by the hilichurl camp where you met Shenhe in. You must be getting closer to the ruins, maybe you could lose Yelan in the twists and turns of the rundown ruins.

But that plan quickly is thrown out the window when the only exit is a large drop-off, small broken ruins with broken ruin pieces serving as platforms on the large river. Treasure hoarders roam that area from what you remember.

To your right is a large mountain, climbable but no doubt time-consuming. On the left is where the ledge is. The only thing in front of you is a path leading to a boss, that you can’t be certain would recognize you or not. And above it would just be another cliff only serving to prolong the chase.

Faced with the choice, the shallow water washes the crusting blood off your legs. Climb the mountain and be shot down by Yelan, or glide off the edge into Tianqiu Valley and be shot down by Yelan or the treasure hoarders.

Aren’t you spoiled for choice?

That sarcastic thought is quickly swept away as you narrowly avoid an arrow that hits the water. Only sparing a glance behind you, you move to the side avoiding the follow-up arrow. The click of Yelan’s heels is replaced with the sloshing of water as she runs after you.

She dodges the Cryo that a large Cryo slime shoots at her as you back away with urgency. Before you can make a panicked split decision, a new Geovishap tackles her right into the Cryo slime.

The combo of being frozen and shattered seems to knock the wind out of Yelan as she falls onto the ground and slowly rises to her feet. The Cryo slimes, now with the addition of another that popped up out of nowhere and this new Geovishap, form a circle around Yelan.

The circle is tight and her soaked form only hinders her further. The wounds and bruises she sustained from the previous Geovishap are still visible.

You recognize this as an opportunity to escape.

The sound of Yelan’s grunts and groans of pain as she’s thrown around out of sight are washed away as you pull the game screen up. It loads slowly but you aren’t too worried, Yelan is spent after chasing you and fighting so much today.

Once the map is loaded, you quickly swipe to the statue of the seven. Selecting it you press the teleport button and wait. You wait with bated breath and expectant eyes to finally be free of this whole battle. Yet, as the screen stays the same and a whole minute passes by with no response, your heart pounds with fear.

Trying to deny the worst possibility you press the teleport button again. You press it again and again and again with no results. The sounds of the Cryo slimes being splattered onto the ground make you suck in a harsh breath.

In one last desperate attempt, you close the game screen and open it again. Repeating the same actions before with no difference in the result.

It’s refusing to work.

That revelation fills you with a mix of dread and a manic mess of anger combined with sadness. A disbelieving laugh escapes your mouth in a low tone before you sprint towards the closest escape option. There’s no more time to waste, the petrify is going or already has worn off and Yelan won’t be occupied with that Geovishap forever.

Your scratched-up and coarse fingers haphazardly grasp the grooves of the mountain to climb as fast as possible. It’s painful to put your body weight onto your legs but it must be done. That pain is almost completely blinded by the agonizing burn of when the arrow in your chest is pushed further in whenever you accidentally scrape the wall.

The air becomes thinner as you climb to the halfway point, your digits grasp onto the next protruding rock and it’s too late when you realize that it’s too loose. The rock slips out, hitting your face and temporarily blinding you as your other grip becomes weaker.

Dangerously swaying backward, you stop breathing and scramble to hold on to something. When your cut-up fingers finally grasp something more stable, your face hits the rock and it makes the blood from the wounds Yelan’s nails left leave a splotch.

Pain and sharp aches rack your body but you grit your teeth and continue climbing. The mountain seems to almost vibrate and you look down to see Yelan be smashed onto the wall. A thrilling chill of happiness runs down your spine at the sight of Yelan getting pummelled. You can only hope it scars her the way her injuries most likely will scar you.

The struggle is finally over as your fingers dig into the grass at the top and haul yourself over the ledge. Crawling with the last bit of your strength, you lay on your back and breathe in as much of the thin air as you can. Sharp and burning pain electrifies your nerves as you stare up at the night sky.

Just how shitty was your luck to end up like this?

Gingerly touching your head as the world briefly spins, you open the game screen. Maybe, just maybe it will work now that you are away from the battle. Perhaps it didn’t let you teleport in some stupid rule of ‘no teleporting when enemies are nearby’ or ‘you can’t teleport in battle’. You are well aware that Genshin never had that rule but you wanted to hold onto some hope.

Of course, it doesn’t work. Hope at the end of the day is just that. But being away from a life-or-death situation at least brings back some clarity of mind. You select a different teleport waypoint and try to teleport. It doesn’t work, and after trying nearly all of the waypoints you close the screen and groan in frustration.

You close your eyes and just try to breathe, to relax your heart that just won’t stop beating frantically. It becomes suspicious when your blood runs cold and your stomach churns in a familiar feeling of danger. With anxiety-fueled fear, you roll your aching body a few feet away as the wind caresses your skin trying to help you.

Dirt and grime cling onto your clothes and make your open wounds itch as it enters your body. But your attention is pulled away by a polearm piercing the spot you were lying at just a moment ago. Frantic yet oh so tired, you pull yourself onto your sore feet and stare warily as the cloud of dirt dispenses.

As much as you dared to dream that maybe it was Xiao, the long white hair and crane-patterned sleeves aren’t surprising. Disappointing nonetheless though.

Shenhe grips her weapon tightly as she stays in place, the rock she struck in pieces beneath her. You can already imagine what kind of damage she would have done if you didn’t move away in time. She doesn’t lift her head as she mumbles something.

Not willing to move closer but also too cautious to move away in fear of triggering her, you stand in place. Her head lifts up to let iridescent eyes glare at your beat-up and bleeding body. “I hate you.” She mutters as strands of hair droop to frame her face.

“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate-” She mutters endlessly from her position as you begin to take slow steps backward. The red rope tying her hair is already gone and the ones on her clothing are close to slipping. Most of them are ripped and gone anyway.

Shenhe harshly rips the last of the red rope off and gracefully twirls her polearm into the correct position with a look cold enough to freeze your blood. Actually, that’s just the frost creeping from her feet…

“I hate you!” Shenhe’s yell is swift and her weapon is merciless as her attack pattern changes from the elegant crane style to one more comparable to a raging bull. You hurriedly summon your sickle in the nick of time.

Your hands are shaky from the exhaustion weighing down on your body. Combining that with Shenhe’s erratic wrath attacks makes your movements clumsy.

Each narrowly raised block and shaking deflection eat away at the little energy you have left.

It's not enough.

That fact becomes more and more obvious as your grip on the sickle gets weaker. What other fate awaited you when being hunted down by Shenhe who has fought and trained nearly all her life?

The past battles you've been through are viewed in a new light. Your first fight with those treasure hoarders led you to rely more on your wit than skill. The first Fatui encounter with Heizou had you more as a support than an attacker. Beisht wasn’t even attacking you and you struggled against the elements more than anything else on Beidou’s ship. After taking the commission to save Yiran from the kidnappers, you teamed up with Xingqiu and Chongyun for every battle after that.

Even afterward when you were forcibly separated and Cloud Retainer strangled you, it was the other Adepti that pulled her off. The only battles after that were your hit-and-runs with Yelan and Shenhe. Have you ever actually fought and won on your own since that first scuffle with the treasure hoarders? They even ran away after you threatened them without touching them!

The realization of your less-than-stellar fighting capacity makes your movements sloppier, your body feels heavy with the weight of your journey. All the injuries you sustained, even the ones already healed, seem to chip away at your resolve.

You were tired. You’ve been tired for a long time. It would be accurate to say that you were tired of being tired.

Shenhe’s emotions bleed through her fighting style, the wrath she’s consumed by makes her attacks rough but misaligned. Slices that should have cut deep into your shoulder or slashes across your unguarded areas miss their mark. Each one only makes her more aggravated leading to even sloppier motions.

A terrible cycle that was helping you out enough that you use your new Geo power to petrify her feet. But Shenhe has already experienced this, her spear is waved erratically around her keeping you away.

This rare chance of escape isn’t lost on you, turning on your heels you book it and narrowly avoid the polearm thrown your way. The graze makes the already scraped side bleed heavier, and the burning feeling of pain doesn’t subside.

Running across the greenery and leaving a trail of dotted red on the dark grass, you don’t bother trying to recall where you might be. There was never much of a reason to climb all the way up here as a player and you had no time to stop to observe the map.

The rocks, trees, and flowers blur in a shadowy hazy mess. You can’t be sure whether it's from all the blood you lost, the pain that plagues your body or the starless night sky. A single rock jutted out of the rock trips you and the pain blinds you as you lay on the ground.

Stumbling back onto your feet, you hold a nearby branch with a death grip as your body sways and your vision spins. This intense lightheadedness could only be from blood loss, one would think that it’s a shame how easily you can tell blood loss apart from any other injury it might be.

The sound of water splashing catches your attention and you do your best to follow it quickly without any more falls. The toll of the adrenaline that was coursing through your veins is starting to settle and you know full well how nasty it can be. A small lake appears in your vision and you collapse onto your knees once close enough.

A group of Cryo slimes begin to make their way towards you from the middle of the lake, or maybe it was Hydro slimes? The wind is both sweet relief on your clammy skin and a rude reminder of your aching wounds. Crawling to the side where you can only hope that Shenhe won’t find you as easily, you let your bag fall off your shoulders.

The bag has holes but as it’s not a normal bag, nothing has fallen out. To your immense relief, of course, the medkit you pull out is your only hope of surviving just a little longer. The slimes gather around you curiously, even this close the only thing you can be sure of is their blue coloring.

Ignoring them, you apply the disinfectant, ointment, bandages, and anything else that might help you with your numerous injuries. Most of them were bandaged fine with you skipping the minor wounds to not waste your precious resources, but it was the major two damages that you couldn’t touch.

The remainder of the ice spikes in your calves were slowly melting which, unfortunately, was only leading to more bleeding. The arrow in your chest already made breathing hurt like hell. There was no way you were gonna risk yanking either of the two out. With the bleeding slowed down, your body feels a bit better but the fatigue anchors you to your spot.

Surrounded by the slimes and gently showered by the moonlight your head rests against the closest solid structure. Thoughts of what kind of disease, danger, and death you might experience are washed away. The rippling reflection of the moon on the lake lulls your mind into a haze. Eyelids fluttering shut, you can no longer resist the urge to just rest...

Oh boy, finally done and over with. It actually had more but I decided to cut it here and post the rest with the other parts next chapter. It may be shorter than this one. Or not, who knows. Thanks to my patient editor @serpent-benediction who edited this today. I hope everyone enjoyed the differences yet similarities between Y/N and Yelan. I did write this on Google Docs rather than on Tumblr so maybe the format is weird. Tell me if this one is too dense looking or any other opinion on it. Edit* Guess which dumbass forgot to add the read more option? Taglist - Remember those that are in italics are those who I couldn't tag! I appreciate all the comments and reblogs! Ya'll can be so funny and sweet at the same time. @vvyeislazzy, @nikqi, @the-dumber-scaramouche, @etherisy, @yourlocalstranger123, @ra404, @iruiji, @goldenglow149, @haru-tofuu, @lsleepysimpl, @bebobeboben, @yuyuzi-ling, @amidst-the-tempest, @resident-cryptid, @mxd1zzy, @mochicurls21, @nervouseaglelover, @thedevioussmirk, @yumuramma, @kwqsla, @undecidingfate, @ehjane, @game-savvy, @akiramirae, @liansh3ng, @fluffy-koalala, @formacoon, @sxftiebee, @khxii-i, @ursinaw, @chuuya-brainrot, @sweetbills, @kazuchaos, @snowfoxnix, @bluebelony, @shellofthewell, @pencil-of-ashes, @ghostlyintervention, @taiformaifoe, @goaudduck, @carminerin, @maddysflowers, @zenith-of-all-zenith, @crazydreamcat, @leafanonsforest, @grimreapersscythe, @leylanx, @sapphireknown, @help-whatdoimakemyusername, @zhonglisfruityass, @mer0n37, @victoria1676, @mochinessss, @sinnful-darling, @emilymikado, @pix-stuff, @esthelily, @luxie963, @emmbny, @millienolife @kbar1013, @xxblackroses623xx, @chxrlxtteee, @aludicpoet, @yandematic, @atrcclovsxoxo, @0lshadyl0, @esthelily, @t-rex-red, @ck123, @steadybreadbluebird, @118gremlin, @stratonia, @time-shardz, @farelady-fate, @valeriele3, @francisnyx, @byakuren100

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auspicioustidings · 2 months

Text

Ae Fond Kiss - Part 1

Winsome Wee Thing

Summary: This is the start of a story from this concept. You fall in love and you learn loss more ways than one. Words: 3.9k TWs: major character death (temporary), miscarriage

Parts: 1 2 3

You and your boyfriend's Lieutenant disliked one another immensely and immediately.

For you it wasn’t so much that the hulking idiot was in a balaclava, although you found the skull pattern so teenage boy edgy that it caused a cringe deep enough to feel right through your molars, it was the obvious dismissal he had for you. For Simon it wasn’t so much that Johnny’s newest pretty little bit was a smart arse, although he could practically feel the ‘not like other girls’ radiating off of you in waves, it was the obvious disdain you had for him. The first impression set the tone for what became a horrid relationship.

–

“This is my Lieutenant, they call him Ghost but I believe he prefers to be called-”

“That’ll do.”

There was something about the way he cut the puppy dog that was your boyfriend off that riled you a little.

“Nice to meet you, Ghost. Is that your gamer tag or something?”

“Never been one for games. You a gamer girl?”

“Not enough to have such a cool nickname.”

“Oh I’m sure we could come up with a nickname that would suit you princess.”

Gaz, who you did like, spent the rest of the night meditating while Johnny remained clueless to the simmering hostility between the two of you. Price didn’t really seem to know what to make of it all, but you found you had a natural respect for the Captain and as time went on, he was the one that could always tell you and Ghost to knock it off if he could see a fight brewing.

–

Johnny had been so excited to introduce you to his team and his team to you and the only thing you and bonehead could seem to agree on was that you would pretend to be civil when Johnny was around. So the jokes were underhanded but could be brushed off as humour, the vitriol was kept for when his back was turned, the eventual birthday presents were tactfully meant to appear innocent but actually be biting insults and the all out war that was had around a pool table was played off as healthy competition.

If it has been anyone but John MacTavish you’d have dumped him purely so you would never have to see Simon Riley again, but fuck you fell hard and fast for Johnny. You didn’t even fully remember your first meeting. It had been a blind date and you thought you had been stood up so got well past merrily drunk at the bar of a nice restaurant. You had not been stood up, your date had broken down in the snow and in the hours you had been drinking the flurries had become a full blizzard. But that wasn’t going to stop Johnny. In the middle of a backroad with a blizzard beating down and no signal to call he had hiked his ass all the way to you, getting there just in time to catch you wobbling out the door.

He had been a gentleman, hadn’t taken advantage. You woke up the next day with a handsome man bringing you breakfast in bed and apologising profusely for the whole thing. He had slept on your couch and admitted sheepishly that he had walked you home. From what little you did remember, you had made it difficult by starting a snowball fight and wanting to make snow angels every 5 minutes. You remembered the scent of pine and a roaring fire that enveloped you when he had bundled you in his jacket, breathing in and being transported to a log cabin in the Scottish highlands in winter, safe and drinking something warm with a hint of whiskey.

If you hadn’t already been falling for him after his bashful teasing that morning, you were flung head first into it when you spent the next week looking after him when his gallantry earned him the worst cold known to man. He was a big baby when he was sick and that combined with the terrible sense of humour that he had made you desperate to learn more about him.

–

“Ye cannae be mean tae me, I’m naw long for this world!”

For such a large man, he really was like a little kid bundled up in blankets and whining.

“Uh huh, that’s very valid and very sad but you still need to take your medicine.”

“I was never any good at swallowing, maybe ye can give it tae me as a suppository.”

Ridiculous man.

“Aww come on, swallow like a good boy and maybe we can talk about that suppository when you’re better.”

“Fuck, where have ye been all my life?”

His loopy grin nearly made you plant a kiss on his lips regardless of how ill he was, but instead you just ruffled his hair when he knocked back the pills and wondered how you were ever going to keep from loving this man.

–

The second date he had left you with a fond kiss at the doorstep after a wild night of earning enough tickets at the arcade to win him a little plush skull toy. He had been obsessed with it when he had first seen it, had told you he needed to win it for his Lieutenant. You thought that was adorable and had put your frankly suspiciously good reflexes to work absolutely rinsing the whack a mole for every ticket you could get from it. Of course had you known then that Simon Riley was the biggest ass on the planet you’d have hoarded your tickets and gotten 300 packets of Haribo instead (or so you’d like to think, but you knew deep down you could never have denied Johnny knowing how bright he smiled when he had traded the tickets for that stupid plush).

By the third date you wanted him so badly that you felt like a bitch in heat. You started to think that maybe you were making a fool of yourself with how calm he seemed whenever you sneaked a touch or whispered a filthy promise. God you liked him so much, it was killing you that maybe he didn’t feel the same. You needn’t have worried as it turned out, date number 3 was when John MacTavish had completely ruined you in a way you had not expected.

–

“This was really nice” you said, a bit embarrassed if you were honest and avoiding his eyes after he walked you to your front door.

You had been a menace the whole evening. You had never been some sex kitten but fuck he just brought it out in you without even trying. He probably thought you were ridiculous now with how you had tried to be all sultry the whole way through dinner. Fuck, your hands had wandered something awful during the movie as well and you felt the humiliation from it burn from your ears to your toes. He didn’t want you the way you wanted him and you had pathetically thrown yourself at him. He probably couldn’t wait to lose your number.

“Open the door.”

Shit. He sounded almost angry. The first guy you had really liked in a long time, maybe ever, and you had totally blown it by being over eager. You shakily unlocked your door and blew out a breath, prepared to go inside and cry over a glass of wine. Instead you were grabbed by the waist and slammed against the door to close it behind you so fast it made your head spin.

John MacTavish’s tongue was down your throat and he had your wrists pinned above your head in a bruising vice grip. You had only just found the sense to kiss back when his lips were gone and instead his teeth were sinking into the delicate skin of your throat. The whine you made at that was all animal, as was his answering growl.

“Next time ye misbehave like that I’m going tae bend ye over the dinner table and fuck ye hard and proper in front of all those nice, fancy people.”

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. You had never gotten so wet so fast in your life. The nice lace panties you had on under this dress were soaked right through. He bit off a curse and your legs nearly gave out when he suddenly let you go and backed right off, dragging a hand roughly through his hair.

“Fuck, sorry. Dinnae hate me, I wanted tae… our first time I mean, I had it all planned oot. Which makes me sound like a creepy, presumptuous bawbag. And now I’m being a fucking reprobate and pinning you tae the door without even asking first.”

Oh my God. You could not just fall in love with a man after 3 dates. And yet looking at his blown out eyes, how his body thrummed with barely contained lust for you and how he nearly vibrated with the effort of holding himself back because he wanted to treat you right… you had fallen in love with a man after 3 dates.

“I thought…” you said, your hand coming to rest on your flushed chest as you tried to find the words. “I mean at dinner and then at the movie, I um… well I wanted you to, you know. I thought maybe you didn’t want to? Which is fine obviously. I mean if you didn’t want to.”

The whiplash from going from lust to humiliation to lust and back to embarrassment was not something you were enjoying. You looked at him, he looked at you and after a few long moment the two of you burst into laughter. What a bloody pair you made. He came over and wrapped you in his arms, that wonderful scent that just gave you a feeling of contentment deep in your bones sinking into you.

“I want to. Was hard for the whole film, couldnae move that popcorn bucket or someone was getting an eye oot. Wanted tae spank ye red raw for all that teasing” he confessed into your hair, so sincere and blunt about it that you weren’t sure your pussy was likely to forgive you if you didn’t go out of your way to tease him next time.

“Wanted?”

He laughed, probably because you sounded somewhat like a petulant child, and leaned back, hands going to gently cup your face. Looking into his eyes felt like a gentle falling. Falling into a warm bed on a cold morning after a hot coffee, falling into the first fresh powdery snow of the year, falling in love with a man you hardly knew but felt so much like coming home.

“Was planning on asking ye tae come with me up North. Got a nice cabin in the Highlands that I usually rent oot since my Captain is always going on about having a backup plan. Want it tae be perfect.”

“You don’t have to go to all that trouble.”

Nobody ever had before. In your somewhat limited experience men wanted to get to fucking as soon as they could and while a few had made sure you came first, none had ever put much thought into getting you into bed in the first place. It just sort of happened. You would never have said you were insecure, but at that moment you felt the crushing weight of feeling that you didn’t deserve this man making such a grand gesture just to get inside you. You already wanted him. And there was no way he wasn’t experienced, how would you ever be good enough to warrant all the effort he was going to?

“Hey, look at me beautiful” he said quietly, thumbs rubbing soothingly across your cheekbones and coaxing your eyes back to his. “I really like you.”

Those four words ruined you entirely. John MacTavish put his heart out there with such simplicity that it stunned you. He could have thrown you on the bed and fucked you rough and savage and you’d have enjoyed it, but instead here he was butting his forehead lightly on yours in affection despite his evident arousal because he wanted more than that.

“I really like you too.”

Instead of fucking, he held you while you cried like a baby, overwhelmed by the care he took with you. He only made it worse when he whispered to you how you deserved to be treated with adoration. He called you beautiful, bonnie thing, mo leannan, winsome wee thing (that one made you laugh). He refused gently when you wanted to take care of him that night, instead laying you down softly on the pillows and lapping between your legs to bring you to slow orgasm after slow orgasm until you were boneless and sated, slurring your speech as he bundled you in his arms and you spoke about everything from your childhood pets to your great hopes and dreams until you drifted off into the best sleep of your life.

–

Your first time with him inside you was in that cabin like he had wanted and it had been the most perfect few days of your life. He had made sure you felt safe and comfortable, insisting you gave the location to your friends and going over maps of the area with you, pointing out where you’d need to go to get signal to check in with them. He bought ingredients for all of your favourite meals and stopped for a snack run on the way to boot. He showed you his test results but stressed that he was putting no pressure on you either way and if you did want to have sex he would have condoms if you preferred. And after all that he made it clear that you did not have to have sex with him if you didn’t feel like it. Johnny would be happy to just hold you for a weekend. As soon as you arrived he taught you how to use the sat phone if there was an emergency. The voice on the other end was gruff but soothing somehow, safe sounding (that at least was something that never changed about Simon, despite not liking the man, you always felt safe with him).

You were ready to explode by the time he finally laid you in bed. He stroked deep and slow inside of you, steady and solid and torturous. You understood then the difference between fucking and making love. It was the first time anyone had ever shown you the latter.

He then proceeded to show you the former in great detail on every surface inside the cabin and on quite a few outside. Your pussy was battered and your clit bruised in the most delicious ways. Your throat was raw from screaming and from being fucked. After a lifetime of swearing up and down it was never something you were interested in, you wound up practically begging for his cock in your ass because there was not one part of you that you did not want dripping with him. And of course he was only too happy to make sure you understood everything he would do to prep you by letting you do it to him first. You couldn’t fucking sit down for a full day after he had indeed spanked you red raw for the teasing you had done on that 3rd date.

A week later you met his family, the week after that his brothers in arms. And then he was gone and you were so worried about him that you constantly felt nauseous. It took years for you to be able to settle when he was deployed, to not spend the whole time imagining him not coming home to you. Because by that time that was what you had built together, a home.

You and Kyle became friends throughout the years. You really did like him, he was easy going and would laugh and let you bitch about Simon whenever you wanted. Captain Price came to feel like an older brother. He was there whenever you needed him, whether it be a car breakdown or because you were in a panic about a handsy coworker (poor guy had broken both hands in an accident the next weekend). And Simon? Well not too much changed there, you dealt with each other when you had to and were it not for your shared love of Johnny you suspected you’d have killed one another.

At least until Las Almas.

–

You didn’t know how you were going to tell Johnny. In fact, you probably wouldn’t. What good would it do? It had sorted itself out. That was how you tried to think about it. Food poisoning had made the pill ineffective for a day, you had gotten pregnant unplanned and unwanted and had lost the baby before you’d even started showing. It didn’t matter that while Johnny was somewhere being a hero you had heard a tiny heartbeat at the doctors. You told yourself over and over again that you didn’t want it anyway. You tried to think about how awful everything felt all the time. The morning sickness, the fatigue, the mood swings.

It was probably just the shock of it, waking up wet from the blood and thinking you were dying. If your first thought had been that you’d rather you die and the baby lived then you tried not to dwell on that. She would have had Johnny’s eyes. He would have wanted a mohawk so he could match his daddy. You forced an image of you telling Johnny and him being upset and not wanting a baby. It was useless. You knew that man. You loved that man. And that man would have gently made sure you wanted to keep it before bursting into happy tears and kissing you senseless.

You couldn’t tell him. You couldn’t break his heart the way the last few months had broken yours. Maybe it was selfish, to want to keep this pain for yourself when you knew beyond a doubt that he’d be desperate to share it, to take as much as he could from you and turn it to gentle comfort the way he always did when you were hurting. But you wanted to be selfish over this.

It was a whole new pain when you answered the door and Ghost was standing there. Your knees went from under you and you collapsed with the weight of why he would be at your door. Why would he be here without your Johnny? It was the first time Simon Riley caught you.

You never spoke about the way he held you gently and told you that Johnny was ok, he was alive but injured. He made you laugh through your tears and snot by telling you what a bad patient Johnny was being, how he was about ready to beat up every medic on base to get back to you because “I dinnae need fucking morphine I need tae eat my bird’s pussy”. His Scottish accent on that impersonation was truly dreadful.

Simon never thought he would find himself comforting you. He didn’t like you, he never had. Johnny had never been so serious about anyone and it drove him nuts that you made him so happy. Happiness like that was an easy thing to ruin and you could ruin it if you wanted, that scared the shit out of him. It was even scarier when Johnny had shown him the ring he was planning to offer you.

He never told Johnny how you had broke in his arms that night. How you had told him about the miscarriage in the dark, bled your pain all over him and let it sink into his skin. He had taken it gladly. In the light of the morning you went back to your dislike of one another, but something had changed in the dark.

–

You never did tell Johnny. You and Simon settled then on some sort of begrudging respect for one another. You still argued and bit at each other, but with the knowledge that now you would be part of one another's lives forever through Johnny given that only a few days after he came home he had slid a ring onto your finger.

Frankly you were fucking terrified when you came off of the pill. The only thing that got you through it was, unbelievably, Simon mumbling to you in the pub over a game of pool that you were going to be good parents. Of course Johnny had told him you were trying, but you found you didn’t really mind as you grumbled back an awkward thank you.

You could have strangled Johnny for having such strong fucking swimmers. You hadn't expected to get pregnant almost as soon as you were off birth control and it meant your wedding dress had to be altered to account for the small bump there. The bump he could not keep his hands off. Honestly the man was already insatiable, but fuck he loved you pregnant. He was already talking about more kids and you hadn’t even had the first one, he fucked you and groaned about wanting you pregnant all the time.

Your husband, something you thought you’d never get sick of saying, drove you mad once again in the late stages. You were hornier than ever and he was determined to treat you like you were made of glass all of a sudden. He certainly still gave you as many orgasms as you demanded, but gone was any rough and feral fucking. You loved making love with Johnny, but fuck if you didn’t miss the fucking.

You’d never tell Simon it had been your suggestion, not under pain of death. Neither of you had been attached to any name in particular, but you knew how much Johnny loved his Lieutenant. He was his best friend and they owed one another their lives several times over. There was a good chance that you owed him your life. Your husband had kissed you with so much love when you had asked if he’d like to call your son Joseph and after talking about it late into the night you had agreed that the little human inside you was your wee Joey.

A wee fucking bruiser is what he was, coming into the world kicking and screaming. Ten perfect fingers and ten perfect toes. You joked that he must have screamed so loud he had damaged his own ears when he was referred to the audiology clinic after a second newborn hearing test. They stressed that you shouldn’t worry over it, but you hadn’t been anyway. Joseph was the strongest most wonderful thing you had ever seen, whatever came of it he had two parents who were going to make sure it never made his life anything less than a grand happy adventure.

Johnny had hated leaving him. Price had hated to ask it, had sent you enough flowers to start your own florist in apology. You understood though, your husband was off saving the world after all. Your heart was in your throat when he kissed Joey’s head and then kissed you soundly. Something felt off with him. The kiss felt different somehow, mournful. Maybe it was just a trick of your memory, hindsight tainting what you hadn’t known was the last time you would see your husband.

–

Simon Riley caught you a second time. John MacTavish was dead.

#mhairiwrites #cod #fanfic #soap x reader #ghost x reader #john mactavish x reader #simon riley x reader #simon riley x john mactavish #eventual happy ending #my guys I wrote this in one go this evening so have mercy on my soul #enjoy all the sprinklings of trauma in here that are surprise tools that will help us with angst later

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calliesmemes · 2 months

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DARKNESS HAUNTS YOUR NARRATIVE

UNSETTLING SENTENCE STARTERS FROM VARIOUS SOURCES THAT WILL SEND SHIVERS DOWN YOUR SPINE AND LEAVE AN OMINOUS FEELING LINGERING IN THE ROOM.

CHANGE gendered words and in-universe phrases as needed.

SPECIFY muse for multimuses.

“ I’m deep inside your mind. There is no escape for you. ”

“ You save everyone, but who saves you? ”

“ The power inside of me — it’s terrifying. ”

“ Power belongs to those who take it. ”

“ You’ll be the ruin of me, won’t you? ”

“ You weren’t meant to save the world — you were meant to destroy it. ”

“ You didn’t break me; you built me. All you did was make me ruthless. ”

“ You have no power over me. ”

“ I am terrified by this dark thing that sleeps in me. ”

“ All the greatest loves end in violence. ”

“ I don’t think you’re truly mean. You have sad eyes. ”

“ In theory the prophecy could still come true. ”

“ One day, your empathy is going to get you killed. ”

“ We are masters of our own destiny. ”

“ Never trust a survivor until you find out what they did to survive. ”

“ The horror that you have seen is not who you are. ”

“ A little too much anger, too often or at the wrong time, can destroy more than you would ever imagine. ”

“ Your scars are not your shame; they are your story. ”

“ I will never turn my back on people who need me. ”

“ Isn’t it scary to be ready to die at such a young age? ”

“ Your mind is a weapon. Keep it loaded. ”

“ Are you hearing those voices again? ”

“ It scares me sometimes. The emptiness I see in your eyes. ”

“ You may not be interested in the war, but the war is interested in you. ”

“ Haven’t you taken enough from me? ”

“ You collect scars because you want proof that you are paying for whatever sins you have committed. ”

“ It is okay to be angry. It is never okay to be cruel. ”

“ I hope that what you did to me haunts you. ”

“ The price of freedom is high. It always has been. ”

“ When you talk, I can hear the revolution. ”

“ Do not pretend that you are some meek, pathetic little girl when I can see that vicious mind working behind your eyes. ”

“ Your new life will cost you your old one. ”

“ Watching someone you love suffer can teach you even more than suffering yourself can. ”

“ Some people are in your life to test you ”

“ Fear makes men more dangerous than magic ever could. ”

“ At what point do you think i'll become the wound itself and not simply the bearer? ”

“ We are made of all those who have built and broken us. ”

“ All power demands sacrifice and pain. ”

“ Some things buried deep need to stay that way. ”

“ You and I are going to change the world. ”

“ I wonder which will get you killed faster — your loyalty, or your stubbornness? ”

“ Something’s made your eyes go cold. ”

“ If I am not a weapon, then what am I? ”

“ Your chains are broken, but are you truly free? ”

“ You were alone before they left you. ”

“ You can love a monster, it can even love you back, but that doesn’t change its nature. ”

“ It’s awful not to be loved. It’s the worst thing in the world … it makes you mean, and violent, and cruel ”

“ We can simultaneously be both human and monster. ”

“ I have this strange feeling that I’m not myself anymore. ”

“ You laugh like a little girl and think like a martyr. ”

“ Grief taught me inhumane things. ”

“ You will always be a monster. There is no turning back from it. ”

“ I know there’s a villain, and I’m worried it’s me. ”

“ I can’t stand the bitter thing that I’ve become. ”

“ People will never bleed enough to fulfill your vision of justice. ”

“ What if I told you the truth about what happened that night? ”

“ Part of me died in order to survive. ”

“ We are cursed with a tendency for violence. ”

“ I speak in verses, prophecies, and curses. ”

“ I see no use quarrelling with fate. ”

“ Nobody smart plays fair. ”

“ Fine, make me your villain. ”

“ They should be terrified of me. ”

“ I gave you devotion, blood, and my life. ”

“ How disappointing, when people succumb to what is expected of them. ”

“ Perhaps that was why I had to endure pain — because true transformation can only happen in the crucible of suffering. ”

“ Morality, too, is a question of time. ”

“ Memories destroy us. ”

“ My entire life, I’ve been fighting a war. ”

“ Fair is foul, and foul is fair. ”

“ Are you becoming what you’ve always hated? ”

“ I have found it takes a lot of strength to endure myself. ”

“ Loving any of us is a death sentence, isn’t it? ”

“ You long to be bandaged before you have been cut. ”

“ I feel so lost among these entirely strange people. ”

“ Remembering is like an open wound. ”

“ The wounded recognize the wounded. ”

“ I am alone and am suffocating because I cannot give voice to my emotions. ”

“ I’ve lived through entire tragedies in silence. ”

“ The more you love, the more you suffer. ”

“ The crowd that applauds a ruler’s coronation is the same crowd that will applaud a tyrant’s beheading. People like a show. ”

“ You are a better knife than you are a person. ”

“ Life goes more smoothly without a heart. ”

“ People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar. ”

“ I’m nostalgic for the anger I once had. ”

“ The pain I didn’t tell you about has built a home inside of me. ”

“ My greatest regret was how much I believed in my own future. ”

“ All I ever do is grieve. ”

“ Do not mock a pain you haven’t endured. ”

“ I control the shadows. They do not control me. ”

“ Turn the pain into power. ”

“ Sometimes, we survive by forgetting. ”

“ I am now the most miserable man living. ”

“ To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me. ”

“ In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony. ”

“ I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me. ”

“ Memories do not always soften with time; some grow edges like knives. ”

“ Maybe everything that you thought was breaking you was actually leading you towards yourself. ”

“ Sometimes, not being in control is the most beautiful thing in the world. ”

#askbox meme #askbox prompt #rp ask meme #ask box #roleplay sentence meme #sentence starters #roleplay prompts #roleplay sentence starters #* sentence meme #rpc help

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steviewashere · 2 months

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Kisses to Make it Better

Rating: General CW: Vomiting (It's Kind of Gross, Sorry) Tags: Established Relationship, Married Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Future Fic, Sick Fic, Sick Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington Has Migraines, Steve Harrington Has Head Trauma, Eddie Munson is a Sweetheart, Eddie Munson Takes Care of Steve Harrington, Forehead Kisses, Lots of Kisses, Star Wars Reference, Steve Harrington is a Dork, Eddie Munson is a Dork, Teacher Steve Harrington (Briefly Mentioned), Mild Hurt/Comfort, Fluff

For the @steddielovemonth prompt: "Love is the kiss on my forehead."

💕—————💕

When Steve wakes up, it’s to the sharp, piercing sensation of a migraine attack. He immediately closes his eyes and groans. His senses are heightened miserably.

Soft bird song is like screeching. The gentle rustle of tree leaves like the scrapes of fingernails on a chalkboard. (And god does he know that from working with a bunch of butthead eighth graders.) Any sunlight is like a laser aiming to obliterate him onsite. He’s warm and boiling and the blanket sears where it touches. But when the removes it, he’s frozen to his core and shivering. The dull sounds of Eddie’s snores—Steve almost wants to suffocate him; he may not usually be a motorboat, but wow does he mimic one amazingly right now.

He can’t take it. The space in their bedroom is too much for his everything. So, he grabs his pillow from under his head, stands on unsteady legs, and ventures out into the hallway. Snatches a spare quilt—one made by Joyce Byers some short years ago for his and Eddie’s makeshift backyard wedding—a wash rag to put under cold water, and a towel. Just in case he has to lay on the bathroom floor. It’s humiliating knowing that the migraine could reach that point, what he wouldn’t give for his uninjured pre-1983 brain.

The couch is lumpy and distinctly firm and uncomfortable under his mutilated back. He’s sweaty, cold, too hot, nauseous, and dizzy. Really, he should’ve stopped by the medicine cabinet in the bathroom for his Imitrex. But the mere idea of standing longer than he needs to, the floor like ocean waves crashing at his feet, his entire body an uneasy cargo ship ready to crash into lighthouse rocks—it makes him shiver. Though, whether that be from his body’s inability to regulate his temperature, he isn’t sure.

But he manages to find a comfortable enough spot. Left arm squished and folded awkwardly by his head, the other tight at his side. Legs crossed at his ankles. The rest of him completely supine to the cushions. Head nestled and drowning in his practically flat, definitely overused bedroom pillow. He sighs, agitated.

This is his life.

Probably should’ve woken up Eddie. Probably should go to the landline and call in sick to work. Probably should get a puke bucket, too. But…nope, he’s somewhere between comfortable and dying on the couch. The perfect in-between. He closes his eyes against the next wave of dizzying nausea that overrides him. Breathing through his nose in sharp, hot exhales. Willing it, or at least attempting to, away. This is one of the worst attacks he’s had in a very long while. Beats out the infamous migraine attack of 1990, a story that ends in a bed at urgent care, accompanied by heaving puke, with Robin’s and Nancy’s cold hands to his sweaty forehead, and Eddie nervously chomping away at his fingertips. Should he go to urgent care? He grinds his teeth together at the thought.

Distantly, there’s some shuffling around the bedroom. Steve grimaces at the noise. Then, some light footfalls in the hallway. And all at once, God’s heavenly light is cast around him, though now it’s like the swallowing pits of Hell. He groans, tight and muffled in the back of his throat.

“Shit,” Eddie hisses. “Sorry, baby, sorry,” he whispers. Eddie’s not that great at whispering. Or, maybe he is. Maybe Steve is Dumbo level sensitive to every sound in the world. The light is flicked back off and Eddie comes closer to the couch.

Though, the aromatic scents of Eddie’s Axe musk body spray overpower every sensation Steve’s experienced in the short span he’s been awake. Did he fucking spray it before going to bed, Steve wonders, gagging. He puts out a weak hand, palm towards Eddie. “Don’t,” he strains. Even his voice is grating. “You—“ He gags again, throat clenching, stomach turning, bile rising. The palm draws back, flapping in the air, landing harsh around his mouth, squeezing his skin and lips. Steve rolls up onto his right elbow, pointing his face down at the floor, puking—into the kitchen garbage can that Eddie has, somehow, brought in super human speeds.

Eddie hushes above him. He must be crying if that’s how Eddie’s reacting. But he can’t care to notice. His head trapped in the kitchen bag. Coffee grounds and an empty container of baked beans, combining in a hideous concoction that could be compared to that of fresh, steaming dog shit. The sour stench of himself, his insides, the rest of the putrid garbage around his spewing mouth and snotty nose—it all makes him puke harder. A hand traces up and down his spine, the heavy touch barely noticeable unless he’s gasping for air.

When he’s done, he collapses back onto the couch with a resound thud. His breath exhausted and the blood vessels in his face probably bursted. Closes his eyes to block out everything, to try and ground himself again. Eddie shuffles as quietly as he can out of the room. The front door is open, cold morning breeze tickling Steve’s skin, the trash can placed on the porch for now. It’ll get changed out, Steve knows Eddie will do it. He’s getting the Imitrex, some Zofran. Water and a straw. Steve can only hope that Eddie will take a quick shower with some unscented soap, the cologne musk too infuriating to his nose.

He’s carefully sat up. Body loose-limbed and aching all over. Propped up into sitting on the middle cushion. Hair swiped away from his forehead, clipped back by a couple alligator clips. Eddie gently taps the underside of his chin. The nonverbal request, Please open your mouth for your medicine. Steve drops his jaw without hesitation. Pills set on his tongue and a straw placed between his lips. Eddie’s hand goes to his left arm, running up and down in slow stripes. Please take slow slurps, is what that hand motion means. And Steve does what he’s told. Careful to not upset his already agitated stomach.

“Eddie,” he croaks. A hum lightly vibrates from above him. Hands nestled on his skin, laying him back down on the couch. He doesn’t open his eyes, squeezes them tighter in fact. Sighing into the horizontal position of his body. “Eds, please take a shower.”

A light snort. “Saying I stink?” Eddie whispers, though there’s no offense drawn tight in his voice. Just amusement. Maybe some concern if Steve could only focus on the sound.

He shakes his head, but grimaces at the light-headed sensation it causes. Settles and whispers, “No, I can smell your cologne. Too strong.”

“Oh,” Eddie mutters. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Let me take care of that.” He sets something clunky on the floor. Another bucket, most likely. And stands, his shadow blocking the sunlight streaming in through their living room windows. He must take notice to the light because then, the curtains are all shut at once. Or, something quick like that. Steve isn’t really aware of reality right now. Floating somewhere between comfortable and dying, laying in that still, too.

In the blink of an eye, Eddie is back by his side. Though, when his right hand tangles with Steve’s, he’s noticeably damp. Either he took the quickest shower in existence. Or Steve’s time blindness is on another level today.

“Pain level?” Eddie murmurs.

Steve sighs through his nose. “Started as a nine,” he mutters, “down to a seven.”

“Poor baby,” Eddie sweetly coos. He gently squeezes Steve’s palm. I’m here, I’ve got you, you’re safe, he says. His other palm settles softly on Steve’s forehead, over the cold wash cloth he placed there. Thumb pressing between Steve’s eyebrows. “Want me to massage?”

“Yes, please,” Steve murmurs.

Another squeeze to his palm. Then, Eddie carefully maps his fingers over Steve’s scalp, pressing down minutely into the tendered areas. He sweeps his thumb down the bridge of his nose, under his eyes, pushing gently at the surrounding bone and sinus pockets.

But then, he does something he normally wouldn’t do. He peels the washcloth off. Which is fine with Steve, it’s already gone warm. He’ll need the ice pack in the freezer in a few. Eddie puts his hand back on the crest of Steve’s head. And leans down.

A warm, barely damp, sweet peck to the center of Steve’s forehead.

He opens his eyes. Steve—already sensitive, strung up beyond belief—tears up. Whimpering lowly, attempting to not be heard. Though, of course Eddie heard. He’s extra perceptive when Steve has migraine days. He immediately draws back, eyes wide and frowning. “Fuck,” he spits, muted. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I didn’t mean to make it worse.”

Through his weeping, however quiet it is, Steve stutters, “It’s fine—it—You didn’t hurt me. Just—Sweet.” He preens up into the hand still on the back of his head. “Wasn’t expecting it.”

“Oh,” Eddie whispers. He settles back down, having risen up on his knees from where he’s situated on the floor. Another little kiss to Steve’s nearest temple. Then between his eyebrows. Under his eyes. Tip of his nose. Back to the center of his forehead. “Just kissing the hurt away,” Eddie murmurs on Steve’s skin. Smacking one more on the crinkle Steve didn’t even know he was doing. “Is it working?” He lowly whispers.

Steve chuckles. “I don’t know,” he says. “Do it again?”

“Of course,” Eddie promises. A kiss here and there. But, the most prominent spot being his forehead. Eddie’s hand slides away from Steve’s, instead splaying over his heart. Pressing firm to his chest. Steve briefly wonders if Eddie can feel how his heart speeds up with each press of his lips.

Another to his forehead, drifting down his nose, one on his chin, and the last on his lips. “Ew, Eds,” Steve murmurs, “I got barf breath.”

“Don’t care,” Eddie mutters. Back at Steve’s forehead. “You aren’t contagious,” he says as if that immediately overrides how disgusting it is. “In fact, the only thing I’m catching from you is feelings,” he flirts, or at least Steve thinks he’s attempting to do that. If the stupidly endearing little wiggle to his eyebrows means anything.

Steve fondly rolls his eyes. “You’re such a dork,” he states.

“Your dork,” Eddie whispers. “And I love you.”

“I know,” Steve whispers in turn.

Eddie draws back from kissing again. To lock eyes with Steve, who is glowing with mirth. Probably paler than he’s ever been and tinted green. Yet, with fake annoyance in Eddie’s eyes, all that’s directed at Steve is unashamed love. “Did you just Han Solo me? Who’s the dork now?”

“Me,” Steve proudly murmurs. “Kiss?”

And Eddie obliges.

With the kisses as distraction, a hand over his heart, the nausea receding for now—Steve is filled with warm love. He believes that Eddie may truly heal him.

Migraines are always the worst days. But it’s a good day, if Eddie is there beside him.

💕—————💕

#stranger things #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddielovemonth #day 25

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hannigramislife · 6 months

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I just encountered a person comparing Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli, saying how Jiang Cheng got his parents' worst attributes and Jiang Yanli got the best, and after a whole lot of bullshit I'm not gonna repeat, another really tried to erase Jiang Cheng's sacrifice by saying he didn't distract the Wens in the book, but lost his golden core for revenge.

I think this has been a little eye-opening for me, as to why people hate Jiang Cheng and why they can't stand to see the good in him.

Because to see the good in him, is to acknowledge that he is not the man they make him out to be, which, obvious so far. But to really see the good in him, is also to see the hurt in him. To see the suffering that their image of "cold, cruel jc" can't allow.

And to see the suffering means to acknowledge the ways his family - all of his family - failed him.

His father failed him completely, and I don't even have to elaborate. His mother failed him by always putting him on the spot, straining his relationship with his brother, not supporting him in learning for the sake of the leader he was going to be, but out of spite to her husband. Wei Wuxian failed him post-war, because he pulled away from Jiang Cheng completely, causing the chain of events to lead to what it did.

This is not taking into account the emotional toll and influence that Wei Wuxian's presence had his entire life, since they met, because most of that wasn't on Wei Wuxian, but only the fact that Jiang Cheng was given the tall order to rebuild Lotus Pier and take care of his sect, and Wei Wuxian made that all the much harder, and then he left of course.

Jiang Yanli also failed him, and this might be controversial, but this is my opinion as an older sibling myself. The fact that we don't have a single scene where she's offering him support exclusively, without Wei Wuxian in the picture, can be attributed (maybe) to the fact that the story is from Wei Wuxian's pov, but I still think that Jiang Yanli was wrong to go to that battlefield, defenseless, because what happened? She died in Jiang Cheng's arms, leaving him with the added trauma, as well as an infant child to care for.

I realize this is all from a particular point of view, and not taking into account the reasons others did what they did. I know they have their reasons. And they are always allowed those reasons, they justify their actions.

Why isn't Jiang Cheng, who was the youngest of the Jiang family, a boy who had to become a man so his people could rely on him, a boy so traumatized by what happened, what he witnessed, what he went through—

Why is he not allowed his reasons? His grief? Why was he not allowed ignorance?

#the untamed #mdzs #jiang cheng #mo dao zu shi #will defend jiang cheng #to god

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fuckmeyer · 2 days

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the choice between Edward & Jacob is not a question of which relationship is healthier or which partner is best suitable for Bella. neither is correct. neither is best. neither produces a happy ending for Bella. at the end of the day this is still a vampire novel. any choice Bella could make would yield, at best, a bittersweet happily ever after.

if she chooses Edward, she gets the terrifying Breaking Dawn ending: a girl who rejected her call to grow up has hung her love & her eternity on an emotionally stunted partner who hates himself marginally less than he loves her. she's a teen mom with a kid she never wanted who perpetuates the generational trauma passed down from her parents. by keeping this child, the Cullens have set the stage for an uprising/cold war against the Volturi who are likely to take revenge in order to maintain power. Bella is living in a tenuous "dream come true" wrapped in a nightmare & doesn't realize it.

choosing Jacob is the true coming-of-age ending that rips the stitches out of a wound that never fully healed. even if we ignore the fact that she ends up with a man who sexually assaulted her (we must bear in mind Jacob's character is influenced by smeyer's racism, but it did happen), they can't have a secure romantic relationship. based on the high imprinting rate of the pack, Jacob will likely find his imprint in his lifetime & will lose himself to the imprintee. he will no longer be her Jacob. he will inevitably abandon her (whether he wants to or not), & she must reconcile with the reality that she will always be inadequate to Jacob's imprint. & say he never manages to escape the vampires? he will presumably not age for a long time, meaning the relationship Bella always feared with Edward (her being an old grandmother while he stays forever young) remains a possibility. this is the story of a girl who slaps a Band Aid on an open wound & calls herself healed while flinching every time she sees the shadow of the knife that cut her.

if she chooses neither (team therapy), her healing requires her to lose or be at least partially disconnected from everyone she cares about. Bella must spend the rest of her life shut out from one world while never fully existing in her human world ever again. she must always keep secrets. she can never go back home. even in the unlikely event that she manages to escape the Volturi, the threat of being hunted by vampires will never leave her. in addition, she must face her worst fears (aging, losing Edward) while always keeping in mind the immortal life that could have been hers, if only.

even the "healthiest" option produces scars that will never quite heal.

Twilight is a horror. Twilight is a vampire novel. Twilight is gothic. Twilight is fiction. neither Edward nor Jacob is a "bad" choice because neither will give Bella her happily ever after. the choice between Edward & Jacob is simply a matter of which horror story you prefer to read.

#twilight #twilight renaissance #bella swan #the twilight saga #edward cullen #twilight saga #twilight meta #not to be a downer but the edward/jacob feud is silly #i understand this feud will continue in perpetuity because controversy & drama will always garner attention in online spaces etc #but the idea that either of these men will provide the happy story some people in this fandom want is an illusion #because no matter what happens The Twilight Saga still operates in the context of the vampire/gothic genre which by design can't produce #a 100% happy ending. the vampire itself reflects the inner anxieties of a society - & isolation & change & death - etc.#these are anxieties that can be alleviated thru vamp media. they can be escaped but never solved. which is part of the horror of the genre #The Horror Will Not Go Away #& in this respect Twilight is NOT the exception to the rule.#'oh but it's a YA romance so-' yeah so the black walls get wallpapered. they're still black underneath & nothing changes that #i wish we were able to debate the choice between Edward & Jacob while still bearing in mind neither choice is wrong #i think this fandom would be a lot less toxic & mean to each other for no fuckin reason but oh well

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edenmemes · 10 months

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asoiaf: a feast for crows starters

❝ i’m sorry that i never trusted you. i don’t know how to do that any more. ❞ ❝ you make it difficult for a man to swallow his anger. ❞ ❝ history is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. what has happened before will perforce happen again. ❞ ❝ the worst isn't done. the worst is just beginning, and there are no happy endings. ❞ ❝ words are like arrows. once loosed, you cannot call them back. ❞ ❝ you are a lioness, and it is for all the lesser beasts to fear you. ❞ ❝ anger is better than tears, better than grief, better than guilt. ❞ ❝ kind? how boring that would be. i aspire to be wicked. ❞ ❝ sometimes there is no happy choice, only one less grievous than the others. ❞ ❝ when i make a jest i smile. do you see me smiling? do you hear laughter? ❞ ❝ beauty can sometimes mask deadly danger. ❞ ❝ i know what a burden you bear. you should let me share the load. ❞ ❝ you would be wise to not take me lightly...and wiser still not to make of me a foe. ❞ ❝ i need to sleep, but fear to dream. ❞ ❝ i do not doubt that kindness and mercy and forgiveness can still be found somewhere in this kingdom, but do not look for them here. ❞ ❝ no fight is hopeless till it has been fought. ❞ ❝ open your eyes and look about you. the kingdom is in ruins. ❞ ❝ my hand is hungry for a sword. i need to kill someone. ❞ ❝ it does no good to speak of roads not taken. ❞ ❝ i begin to think that all your words of love were lies. ❞ ❝ i pray that i never offend you. you are terrible when roused. ❞ ❝ a sweet face oft hides a sinner’s heart. ❞ ❝ when i am with you, i...i can scarcely think. you are all i ever dreamt of. ❞ ❝ i used to be someone, but now i’m not. ❞ ❝ suffering is everywhere...and grief and death. ❞ ❝ you ought to be pleading for my forgiveness rather than seeking to provoke me further. ❞ ❝ i have been here the whole time, waiting for you to come to me. ❞ ❝ no one who wears a crown is ever safe. ❞ ❝ i have touched more men that i can count. some with my lips, more with my axe. ❞ ❝ i love you too, but you’re a fool. a beautiful golden fool. ❞ ❝ i have been despised by better men than you. ❞ ❝ i never wanted to see half the things i've seen, and i've never seen half the things i wanted to. ❞ ❝ that man is as useless as nipples on a breastplate. ❞ ❝ sometimes there is no happy choice. only one less grievous than the others. ❞ ❝ most have been forgotten. most deserve to be forgotten. ❞ ❝ heroes will always be remembered. the best. the best and the worst. and a few who were a bit of both. ❞ ❝ we all dream of things we cannot have. ❞ ❝ i do not know who we are, if truth be told, nor where we might be going. i only know the road is dark. ❞ ❝ you lie. worse, you lie poorly. ❞ ❝ do you even know what honor is? ❞ ❝ this is not real. this is another bad dream, and soon i’ll wake. ❞ ❝ the rain feels good against my face. it feels like tears. ❞ ❝ i need you as i have never needed you before. ❞ ❝ there is no shame in being afraid, only in showing your fear. ❞ ❝ it is a good thing that i thrive on chaos. ❞ ❝ the times grow ever more interesting, and when the times are interesting you can never have too many swords. ❞ ❝ curses are only in songs and stories. ❞ ❝ you will forgive me if i am suspicious, but the times are troubled. ❞ ❝ fear cuts deeper than swords. ❞ ❝ be grateful that i have more honor than some. ❞ ❝ you do turn a pretty shade of pink when you blush. ❞ ❝ you would do well to ride with me. the roads are perilous. ❞ ❝ some doors are best left closed. ❞ ❝ it does no good to speak of things no man can change. ❞ ❝ why won’t they leave us be? we never did them any harm. ❞ ❝ i cannot die yet. there is something i still need to do. ❞ ❝ it’s time you told me the rest of your plan, don’t you think? ❞ ❝ every man should lose a battle in his youth, so he does not lose a war when he is old. ❞ ❝ words are wind. they cannot hurt you. let them wash over you. ❞ ❝ you are not the only one with wounds. ❞ ❝ when the cold wind blows the lone wolf dies and the pack survives. ❞ ❝ i will teach them what it means to put a lion in a cage. ❞ ❝ better to mock the game than to play and lose. ❞ ❝ knowledge is a weapon. ❞ ❝ you know me. if you want sweet words, look elsewhere. ❞ ❝ you reckless fool. what do you think you’re doing? ❞ ❝ you’ll be safe here. no one will know where you are but me. ❞ ❝ sorcery comes at a cost. ❞ ❝ i have never taken kindly to chastisement, as any number of dead men could tell you. ❞ ❝ so you’re brave as well as beautiful. ❞ ❝ this will cause more trouble than you know, i fear. ❞ ❝ will you throw your life away for pride? ❞ ❝ the crows will feast upon us all if you go on this way. ❞ ❝ our time together is at an end, i fear. ❞ ❝ spare me your japes, i have no taste for them. ❞ ❝ war makes monsters of us all. ❞ ❝ you cannot eat love, nor buy a horse with it, nor warm your halls on a cold night. ❞ ❝ i have a hole where my heart should be. ❞ ❝ i thank you, but i have no need of your protection. ❞ ❝ trust is earned. like gold. ❞ ❝ a lie is not so bad if it is kindly meant. ❞ ❝ far be it from me to question the word of such an honorable person. ❞ ❝ i will bring the head of any man who would betray you. ❞ ❝ noble words, but words are easy. deeds are hard. ❞ ❝ my father is very good at doing nothing. he calls it thinking. ❞ ❝ if you do not go, i will spend the rest of my life wondering what might have happened if i had. ❞ ❝ the sea is never weary. i must be as tireless. ❞ ❝ it’s strength that’s needed here, not chivalry. ❞ ❝ i did not come to you for comfort. ❞ ❝ you see the wonders that can be worked with lies and gold? ❞ ❝ an age of wonder and terror will soon be upon us, an age for gods and heroes. ❞ ❝ a ruler gets no rest. ❞ ❝ if you share your plans with no one, no one can betray you. ❞ ❝ i have a confession. ours was no chance encounter. ❞ ❝ you have your mother’s eyes. honest eyes, and innocent. ❞ ❝ am i still a thief if i put it back and no one ever knows? ❞ ❝ i am weak and full of sin, and scorn is more than i deserve. ❞ ❝ when have i provoked any man...unduly? ❞ ❝ i have never met a man i didn’t provoke, you should know that well enough by now. ❞ ❝ that’s a cold suspicious look if i ever saw one. ❞ ❝ you’ve faced more things this past year than most men face in a lifetime. ❞ ❝ there is a difference between fear and caution. ❞ ❝ it is my look they will flinch from, my frown they must fear. ❞ ❝ you have been disappointing me for years. ❞ ❝ why? tell me that. tell me why. ❞ ❝ i am surrounded by enemies and imbeciles. ❞ ❝ go back. turn away. there is nothing here for you. ❞ ❝ you would do well to omit ‘must’ from any speech directed at me. ❞ ❝ a bad dream. did i scream? i’m sorry. ❞ ❝ i will not be afraid. i will not let them see my fear. ❞ ❝ you will never know how sick it makes me to see you. you will never know how much i despise you. ❞ ❝ i have seen terrible things in my time. ❞ ❝ only a fool makes threats he’s not prepared to carry out. ❞ ❝ stay with me. i do not want to sleep alone. ❞ ❝ sometimes it is best to study a game before you attempt to play it. ❞ ❝ why, do what you always do. do nothing. ❞ ❝ no man ever truly knows what he can do unless he dares to leap. ❞ ❝ what you meant does not matter. only what you did. ❞ ❝ is there any more that you would care to tell me? ❞ ❝ i can’t command you to be brave, but i can command you to hide your fears. ❞ ❝ tell me something useful. tell me of our enemy. ❞ ❝ go away. you are not welcome here. ❞ ❝ these are such fearful times. some nights i can hardly sleep, for fear. ❞ ❝ some wounds do not show. ❞ ❝ i have never looked upon you as a rival, even for a moment. ❞ ❝ go home. you have a home, which is more than many can say in these dark days. ❞ ❝ play me for a fool, and you will die screaming. you are aware of that, i trust? ❞ ❝ you must be more dangerous than you look. ❞ ❝ tell me. i want to know all of it, from the beginning to the end. ❞ ❝ i see you are as lovely as the tales. ❞ ❝ your hands are shaking. they would rather be caressing me, i think. ❞ ❝ dry those tears. have you ever seen a lion weep? ❞ ❝ come! come kill me, if you can. ❞ ❝ i never knew what love could be, yet now...i am afraid. ❞ ❝ the enemy of my enemy is my friend. ❞ ❝ young men are overbold, and think only of the glory of battle and never of its dangers. ❞ ❝ you are weary and sick of heart, that’s plain to see. ❞ ❝ some doors are best left closed. ❞ ❝ the world is full of horrors. you can fight them, or laugh at them, or look without seeing. ❞ ❝ i was wondering. are you drunk, or merely stupid? ❞ ❝ does it hurt so much? is there aught i can do to ease your pain? ❞ ❝ what i want is none of your concern. ❞ ❝ this must end, for your sake as well as mine. ❞ ❝ glory is good, but gold is better. ❞ ❝ please tell me who you are, and why you’re following me. ❞ ❝ many a man will drown in those eyes. ❞ ❝ the best lies have some truth in them...to give them flavor, as it were. ❞ ❝ what are you looking for? your destiny? your death? ❞ ❝ love can make a fool of any man. ❞ ❝ may i stay a while? i feel that we should talk. ❞ ❝ is that a beard, or did you forget to wash the dirt off your face? ❞ ❝ i’ll hear the truth, or you’ll wear chains. ❞ ❝ if you love me, do not leave me. ❞ ❝ only madmen fight wars they cannot win. ❞ ❝ you have a strange look in your eyes. are you unwell? ❞ ❝ last night, i had a dreadful dream. ❞ ❝ you have to help me. where am i to go? what will i do? ❞ ❝ i warn you, i am out of patience. ❞

#roleplay meme #roleplay starters #rp meme #rp starters

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girlactionfigure · 7 months

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Know Thine enemy

I am not a Jew and I’m not a citizen of Israel. I haven’t even visited Israel. I don’t trace my religion back to a holy site in Jerusalem and I don’t have a problem with Arabs or Muslims or Christians. I’ve read about Abraham, Moses, David and Solomon; the Umayyads, the Abbasids and the Ottomans; I know about the British, the Balfour declaration, Ben Gurion and Golda Meir. I know a bit about the Six-Day War and the Intifada. I might not have any personal stake in the Holy Land, but humanity certainly does - and I’m a human being.

The women, men, children, elderly people and soldiers who were kidnapped, tortured, raped, humiliated and murdered on Saturday by Hamas in sovereign Israel were human beings too.

Those who did it to them are not.

Imagine what kind of rational and ethical gymnastics you have to do to justify the cold-blooded murder of teenagers at a music festival; or watching a child, perhaps 5 years old, being prodded with a stick and made to cry for his mother in Hebrew while children of a similar age laugh and mock him? We don’t know that child’s fate and for all we know what followed may have been much worse. It’s depraved. To even enter a conversation about these disgraceful facts with a rehearsed retort about territory or Gaza being an “open-air prison” reeks of moral bankruptcy.

If you wail and scream about your land, dignity, rights, oppression and poverty but are willing to murder, rape, kidnap, torture or humiliate children; then I don’t have to listen to your reasons. When the video footage, photographs and stories of Saturday’s carnage come not from "Israeli propaganda” but from the Hamas terrorists themselves, then how am I to read anything else into it but that you want credit for these atrocities? You want me to know you did it. You want me to know you are proud of it. You want me to see you for who you are. Well, I do.

So, if you swarmed the Israeli Embassy in London, waving Palestinian flags and calling for genocide; if you went down to Times Square to celebrate a victory for decolonisation against “apartheid Israel”; if you sang along to “gas the Jews” chants at the Sydney Opera House or hung a “one settler, one bullet” Palestinian flag over Grayston bridge in Johannesburg then you’re telling me who you are. Well, I see you - and you’re my enemy.

I’m one of those people who believe civilisation is a real thing, and I’ve resisted the poison of moral relativists in the humanities departments of universities across the west who think that being nuanced about the idea of civilisation versus barbarism is a signal of intellectual prowess or critical self-reflection. Upon even a cursory investigation of these people or their positions, you will find every sign of pedestrian intelligence and self-absorbed navel-gazing, combined with a fetishisation of victimhood and always concomitant humourlessness. They too, are my enemies.

It is always interesting to note that only western liberal democracies tolerate and give succour to the most heinous arguments and positions in public protests. You couldn’t picket on the side of quite laudable things like education for girls in Taliban Afghanistan, gay rights in Syria, or against the death penalty in Saudi Arabia. The Ayatollahs of Iran wouldn’t allow women to protest the hijab there under threats of violence. But London, New York, Sydney and even Johannesburg will embrace marches where people actively call for genocide. This is not how allies behave.

Perhaps when the dust has settled we can examine the insidious links between Anglo-American leftism and antisemitism, between Europe never reckoning with what happened in the holocaust and their growing Muslim populations, and between ignorant regimes like mine in South Africa and their determination to stand alongside the worst human-rights abusers in the Middle East.

For now, it’s no big mystery that this has nothing to do with the existence of the State of Israel and everything to do with Jew-hatred - that great, festering wound in the side of humanity from which all prejudice flows. It has been there for thousands of years and every time we think it has healed, some monstrous collective claws it open again.

Hamas aren’t hiding the ball. Their leader, Ismail Haniyeh, safely skulking in Qatar, made this clear. He celebrated dead Jews, not territory won, nor Gazan lives saved.

I’m afraid there are only two sides in a war - your allies and your enemies. On September 11th, 2001, I knew whose side I was on. I feel the same today.

Gareth

Gareth Cliff

#Israel #AmYisraelChai

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burninblood · 1 month

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guys, I sense a lot of tension about this whole buckynat situation XD ... there is even some hate going on on "X" saying they should have stayed broken and stuff... and, listen, I understand, this kind of reunion wasn't what we was hoping for after all these years (10 years?!?!) and of course we had better scenarios in our mind and we were hoping for more good character work (or any characters work at all!), and we want to hear Nat's version (eheh) and these writers are, let's say, uhm, not so good...

BUT

these are american superhero comics for you in 2024. No greatly written for most part, action focused all the time, little or not at all character development, aiming to reach big sales or them get cancelled, flowing with the MCU synergy and stuff. And I tell you as someone who has read comics her whole life (and I had a loooong life, ok XDDD): bad moments in comics come and go, and poor characters run through a lot of shitty writing, and this happens all the time.

Are Lanzing and Kelly good writers? No. HELL NO.

Do I think Cold War was the worst thing written in the media in the maybe last 5 years? YES with a cherry on top! 100% YES.

Is Thunderbolts a good mini series? ... Well, not really. Better than SOL and CW, but still, we're not quite there yet. It was basically random, with a stretched plot that I can't even recall, and really not a team book since it doesn't focused on any of its characters for real. 'Cause you know, I said it before: no character work, just action action and more action.

Is Bucky written by L&K good? No. He isn't. But to be honest he wasn't good in a lot of other comics too, sadly. He has been worse, he has been better. He will improve at some point, that's the cycle.

All this said, am I happy they brought buckynat back? YES. I AM SUPER HAPPY 'cause it opens for possibility!!!

If they gain some more audience as a couple there are more opportunities for them to get more exposure, to be feautured into other comics (in the current cap run written by Straczynski for example?) more and better content, not only together but on their own too! I think them both didn't have a good comic since... 2018??? Nat even earlier probalby, but it's important they somehow stay relevant in the stories 'cause this is how this whole circus works (sad): the characters who sell better get more stories, more comics, better comics from better writers (... hopefully!)! It's bad, but that's the comic market guys.

Idk, it just feels so sad to me that we have waited for so long for buckynat reunion and when it happened finally it left us with just a bittersweet aftertaste... I think this is inevitable 'cause we had so many hopes and we pushed it bigger than life into our heads, and this is reality XD...But realistically speaking, I was never expecting their reunion to be that different from what we got in the end.

It's good to be disappointed, it's right, but let's turn this into a good occasion then, let's try to stay positive and maybe try to exorcise the bad in it by taking a creative angle on the matter: let's write meta about Natasha's pov, let's write fics, let's do edits, fanarts, let's discuss it. But wishing it never happened and dragging them badly...

I know we all feel like they deserved better, and I agree, but let's consider this just THE BEGINNING. It's a starting point and we should keep our fingers crossed for something good to come!

Let's not give up!!!

I'm sorry if this is so long and a whole lot of useless blablabla bhubhubhu, but some of the stuff I'm reading around is starting to be really depressing and a bit too negative considergin the whole situation, and it's a shame 'cause I feel like we should be at least a tiny bit happier here around <3 :D

Let me know what you think of all this mess (or not, lmao) if you want! <3

#buckynat #winterwidow #616 buckynat #thunderbolts 2023 #L & K don't have to be tha bane of our ship guys!#it's just an opportunity with them getting back together!

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studentinpursuitofclouds · 11 months

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What are the biggest fears of the townspeople in Stardew Valley?

Ok, this is a very interesting question. I tried to take into account the canonical fears of people (the same Abigail and Harvey), as they have dialogues that reveal their fears. Thanks for the ask, dear anon, and enjoy!

Warning: there are references to various phobias as well as sad and unpleasant moments. There is no detailed description but still it is worth warning, it may be unpleasant for someone to read.

Rats. Haley is terribly afraid of rats. Huge and scary rodents almost the size of Haley's handbag ... Eeeeeeep, gross!

To be buried alive in a pile of stones in the mines, to die of starvation or wounds, so that later your soul wanders through these very mines like a damned spirit... For Marlon, this is probably the worst fate that he would not wish even an enemy.

Acrophobia made it impossible for Harvey to follow his dream of becoming a pilot, and to this day he has to face problems due to his fear of heights.

Kent fears that the war with the Gotoro Empire will knock on the door of Stardew Valley, the home of his family and friends.

For Shane, the worst thing is if something happens to his dearest niece. Given that they live close to the forest where wolves and bears live...

Clowns... Penny stays away from the man with the clown make-up at every Stardew Valley Fair.

No matter how much Clint grumbles about his work as a blacksmith and about Pelican Town residents, his biggest fear is being alone. Especially dying alone.

The mere thought of going to the doctor brings panic to poor Vincent's face. And if he needs to get a flu shot, then all the glass and windows will crack from loud crying.

Needles. Bummer, why does Sam need to take medicine not in the form of bitter pills, but as an injection? Of course, he's not as scared as his younger brother, but his mom said that Sam cried a lot louder at the doctor's appointment when he was a child.

Poor Jas is terrified of the dark and won't be able to sleep in her room without her nightlight and plush bunny.

Every day, the Wizard needs to check the seal on his wife's hut, for he is afraid that she, in a fit of revenge, will still be able to unleash her wrath on the innocent inhabitants of Stardew Valley. If this happens, he will never forgive himself.

Sebastian has always loved watching the sea, but swimming in the sea - no thanks. One unpleasant incident in childhood, in which he almost drowned in sea water, discourages the desire to swim even in adulthood.

A huge crowd of people is what Leah fears the most, because she knows many true stories when an uncontrollable crowd in a panic can accidentally knock a person to the ground and trample.

Once Pierre visited an exhibition of vintage dolls in Zuzu city with his wife and said to himself: never again. Why dolls? He himself cannot answer.

Snakes for Marnie. And it doesn't matter if they're poisonous or not. Just the sight of a snake makes her break out in a cold sweat.

Abigail is a brave girl, but spiders have always been her weakness. And the fact that there are monster spiders in the mines... Brrr!

No one argues that good-natured Emily loves animals very much, but the sight of a huge predator like a bear or a pack of wolves causes her only piercing fear. And no wonder, these are wild animals.

For Jodi, it's the fear of food poisoning. An even greater fear is that you will be poisoned by your own cooked food. Even more - if her husband and sons were poisoned at the same time. She always checks five times to see if there are any accidental insects or something else in the dough or in the soup.

Who would have thought that Elliott has signs of lyssophobia. Although he is a very creative and philosophical person, among such people there are often individuals who are afraid to go crazy.

More than once or twice Demetrius refused Sebastian and Mary to have a puppy in the house. And this is not because he is harmful, but because he is terribly afraid of them (the dogs, not the kids).

George is afraid of what is inevitable and, sooner or later, will come to everyone without exception - old age.

It's not for nothing that Robin scolds her husband strongly when he almost set a fire in their house due to an unsuccessful experiment - the prospect of being burned alive in an inexorable flame in his own house scares the town carpenter the most. She treated the wood of their house for the sake of seriousness to minimize the possibility of a fire.

Maru can't stand honey, and that's because honey is the sweet nectar from honeycombs, one of the triggers of her trypophobia.

Sea sirens strike terror into the heart of every sailor, and Willy is no exception. An insidious angelic voice that cannot be resisted will pull you and your ship to the bottom, to be eaten by fish. Some mermaids are kind, but the old sea wolf knows what these sea demons can be.

There is no greater nightmare for Alex than the return of his biological father to the Pelican Town.

Somehow, I got the feeling that Lewis has signs of technophobia. All these gadgets, computers and newfangled smartphones cause him irritation, and then fear when he is forced to use one of them.

Poor Evelyn's heart was broken when she buried her daughter, and she fears more than anything that she will have to bury her grandson too... No mother/grandmother should bury their precious children.

The fear of tall objects, buildings, statues is one of the reasons why Gus decided to settle in a calm Valley, and not work as a cook in a huge metropolis.

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svltaf · 1 year

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ms appleton was nowhere close to having total control over soy sauce: perspectives on food and postwar japan

there's a popular post going around this month by @inneskeeper about how a single person changed japanese soy sauce forever. i've made my own post showing why this the story is incomplete and based on some factual inaccuracies, but i will be honest in saying that i would not be so engaged in responding to this post if it were not wrapped in a shockingly reductive narrative. i'll use this quote from op as a summary of the general idea they're trying to convey:

[...] I think that it is incredibly important that more people in the world are aware that leading into the Cold War, Japan was forcibly coerced into giving total power over a significant cultural touchstone/ingredient/way of life to a single foreigner who had a complete lack of respect for what shoyu is, even going so far as to say "I want to change Japan's taste preferences". I cannot imagine a more direct and blunt parallel to settler-colonialism mindset. I truly cannot. [link]

i will attempt give a larger view of that era and convey why this singular view is at best oversimplifying and at worst an incorrect projection of other trends upon what is an almost unique event in history.

note: i am not an academic historian; i will do my best to provide sources, but they will mostly be secondary.

i will use the three i's presented by prof. ian shapiro of yale, interests, institutions, and ideals, as lenses through which i will provide a more holistic view of the events at hand:

tl;dr:

the united states did not have uniform interests entering the cold war and the occupiers had a varying set of visions for japanese society and economy.

both the japanese public, the american occupation, and the japanese civil government had a more important goal: preventing hunger. japan was not coerced into handing over a tradition; it was suffering the consequences of its own colonial empire-building.

both countries were interested in building a healthy consumer economy, and ultimately the tastes of the public held most sway.

the idea of "a guy" being in charge of things has been a common theme in american foreign policy, but the idea that "the guy" was singularly responsible for massive change belies american perspectives and biases that often misrepresent the truth abroad.

i - ideals

i think this lens is maybe the most sympathetic to @inneskeeper's narrative: it makes sense that a settler-colonial nation with a deep root of anglo-protestant self-righteousness and evangelical tendencies would want to impose its vision of society upon a defeated foe. that said, it is not the only ideology at play in this situation, from both japan and the usa.

let's talk about main value the united states likes to impose upon foreign societies: democracy capitalism. i think what is interesting here is that this single word can have multiple interpretations in practice, and we can use this soy sauce story to look at the diversity in opinion of what capitalism means.

first, a capitalism tied to liberal ideals: a free and open market without monopolies as a promoter of egalitarianism. this concept was brought to japan by many of the administrators in the american occupation that have previously observed or enacted roosevelt's new deal in the aftermath of the great depression. [1, p.57-58; 2, p.98] we see a focus on trust-busting and a strong aversion to any significantly concentrated capital. pre-war japan was dominated by structures known as 財閥 zaibatsu, vertically integrated groups that are helmed by a family-controlled holding company owning a set of subsidiaries in banking and industry with interlocking stock ownership and directorship. the zaibatsu structures, emerging since the late edo and early meiji periods, have become inextricably linked to building the japanese imperial war machine (though somewhat forcibly). [3] on the american side, as a result, certain american elements viewed trust-busting as a way to democratize japan through the economy. [2, p.34; 4, p.19; 5, IV-2b] this included maj. gen. marquat, ms. appleton's boss at the ghq/scap economic and scientific section (ess). [4, p.31] japan's first postwar prime minister, shigeru yoshida, and his ministry of foreign affairs, seemed to agree with the deconcentration of capital. [4, p.20] this is not to say that the americans were particularly sympathetic, as gen. macarthur and others were quite convinced of the japanese population's inability to shed its feudal tendencies; rather, the americans found an opportunity to build a new liberal, democratic society to their liking. and yes, there was some punitive intent; the united states and allies did just finish fighting an 8-year-long war against an expanding empire. [4, p.30]

opposite the liberal view is the conservative, if not pragmatic, ideal of capitalism: as a bulwark against communism. japan was an industrialized nation with a developed economy, and as far as the looming cold war is involved, the united states wants both a healthy consumer economy and one that is integrated in the new world economy (i.e. one with american interests as stakeholders). [4, p.31-32, 44] if "deconcentration" of capital, as it was called by the occupiers, were to run its course, some americans (and lobbyists linked to japanese industry) feared that japanese society would be thrown into chaos, or worse, the rapprochement with the soviets under a socialist economy. [4, p.22, 32] the victors did initially break up many of the tightly-woven zaibatsu, but the overall health of the economy was eventually prioritized as a bulwark against communism, thus the number of zaibatsu slated for dismantling was reduced, and the main deconcentration proposal (FEC-230) was disavowed. [4, p. 32]

all this debate within the american occupation, plus some interjections from the japanese business community, about the nature of the rebuilding japanese market and economy was held from 1946 to 1948. this culminated in the "reverse course," in which cold war objectives won out in occupation policy, though the free market as a liberalizing principle was not discarded. [4, p.44-46] in the same space, there existed both a punitive drive to disperse the old japanese economic engine and a desire to build a new, genuinely local, consumer society as a protection against communism.

“Nothing will serve better to win the Japanese people over to a peaceful, democratic way of life than the discovery that it brings rewards in the way of better living and increasing economic security.” - col. r.m. cheseldine, u.s. war department [4, p.44]

it is important to distinguish this from the colonialist drive, which is to capture markets and resources for the sole benefit of the homeland.

in the context of soy sauce, the release by ghq/scap of american soybeans to japan was announced in 1948, after the reverse course has taken hold. [6, p.157] in addition, kikkoman was not even a zaibatsu, it was a company with roots in family ownership, vertically-integrated structures, and eventually found to engage in monopolistic practices, but was not of a large enough scale or diversification to qualify. [7, ch.3] the list of zaibatsu is actually quite limited. [wiki] all this meant that the anti-trust case brought against noda shōyu k.k. (kikkoman's predecessor) in 1954 in the tokyo high court is an entirely domestic affair (scap handed over power in 1949 and the position was abolished in 1952). [8, p.53] that said, the 1957 ruling against noda in noda shōyu k.k. v. japan fair trade commission (jftc) was the result of an aberrant and unfavourable reading of the act on prohibition of private monopolization and maintenance of fair trade, article 3; the act was passed in 1947, when scap was in power. [8, p.53] since article 3 is quite short ("an enterprise must not effect private monopolization or unreasonable restraint of trade."), it was open to wide interpretation, leading to the argument by the jftc that price-fixing as a leading player in an industry constituted monopolistic behaviour. [9] in that sense, we can see echoes of the debate around monopolies from the occupation era.

through the lens of ideals, we can see that in the periphery of this story, there is a friction between competing visions of capitalism in practice. in that sense, while it agrees that the usa had some desire to reshape a foreign country to its own ideals, it also shows how @inneskeeper's narrative unduly reduces the american occupation to a singular actor with singular motives, and one that is akin to colonial empires in other parts of history.

research questions:

did american attitudes towards monopolies affect the free distribution of semichemical fermentation methods? [6, p.160]

what direct links can we make between occupation-era attitudes towards monopolization and japanese governance regarding the food industry?

ii - institutions

from the point of view of institutions (i use the term loosely), it's a lot more apparent how the situation has a lot more factors flowing in many directions. i will largely focus on three structures: the japanese food industry, the allied victors, and the japanese civil government.

when discussing the food industry, it's important to note that this is what sustains the inhabitants of a place; while condiments are a trivial part of sustenance, the way it is made and its ebbs and flows and shed a lot of light onto the needs of people. japan, since the early 20th century, had been a country that could not sustain itself off the resources of its home islands. as a colonial empire, it relied on food imports from korea and taiwan, and in the 20s and 30s pursued the low-lying plains of manchuria (northeastern china). this reflects in its soybean consumption as well: japan consumed about 1 million tons of soy each year in the 1930s, and at least two-thirds of it was imported from the colonies or manchukuo (the puppet régime ruling machuria). [10] within what we now call the "home islands" of japan, hokkaido, the one remaining settler-colony of japan to this day, produces the most out of all regions. [11, p.4]

(time for some math: [10] states that about 949 000 tons of soy sauce was consumed in japan per year in the mid-1930s. a quick look at soy sauce recipes reveals that 1kg of soy produces about 4 litres (and assuming about 4kg due to density of water) of sauce. with the 4:1 ratio, we can therefore estimate that about 237 000 tons of soy was used per year to make sauce immediately before the war.)

the end of the japanese empire meant losing direct access to those production areas: manchuria was returned to china, and korea and taiwan were placed under various allied (usa, china, ussr) administrations. with japan needing to supply its troops over an ever-growing front line, caloric intake by the average japanese already dropped well below necessary levels for an adult by 1944. [12] by 1946, the defeated nation was at the brink of starvation. american analysis towards the end of wwii determined that soybean production in the home islands could not rise beyond its pre-war levels without sacrificing other land use. [11, p.5] in order to survive, the soy industry needed to replace about 70% of its sources in short order without encroaching upon other agricultural sectors necessary to sustain life. there was immense pressure.

regarding the allies: the japanese empire was largely carved up by three victors, china, the ussr, and the usa. the ussr, having been the least active in the defeat of japan, with its most important contribution being the verbal threat of invasion, was not actively threatening aside from the spectre of spreading communism (as mentioned in part i). china, on the other hand, regained the lands that produced much of the food japan was consuming. while the republic of china (ruled by the kmt) was still in power, it was able to continue supplying food to neighbouring nations. [14] however, civil war broke out between the kmt government and the communists almost immediately after the end of wwii. [13] 1948 saw active fighting in northern china, thus hampering any exports of food; the kmt régime collapsed and fled to taiwan in 1949, and the communist government stopped all trade with the western bloc at the outbreak of the korean war in 1950. [14] with china being unable to supply japan, there is only one remaining option for food imports: the usa. soybean imports in the usa was generally coordinated by the garioa program and through private trade. american exports of soybean to japan skyrocketed from 6000 tons in 1946 and 34600 tons in 1947 to 119500 tons (about 12% of pre-war consumption) in 1948, 152500 tons in 1949 (almost all imports to japan that year), and 305000 tons in 1950. [15, p.67, 69] japan itself likely produced between 300 000 and 450 000 tons of soybeans each year, which meant that in 1947-48 japan was consuming definitively less than two-thirds of its pre-war consumption. the soy industry as a whole, and certainly the soy sauce industry, was in a desperate state.

unlike the collapsed german and italian régimes, the japanese government retained a functioning structure after the rapid end to hostilities in the pacific theatre. [16, p.194] this meant that instead of being tasked with the groundwork of running a country, the allied powers had an existing civil government to administer directives and policies; the u.s. eighth army served as an enforcement and reporting arm of scap. [16, p.195-197] during the war, from 1939 to 1942, the imperial government instituted various food control laws that collected and distributed food from producers under a quota system. [17, p.221] such quotas, as as well as rationing, persisted in the immediate months after allied victory. however, with the surrender of japan, public confidence in the government plummeted, significantly hampering its ability to administer food. the average caloric value of rations in tokyo could only fulfill about a third of an adult's needs; hungry city-dwellers increasingly opted to buy on the black market (which had poached imperial military stock) or physically go to the countryside to acquire food directly from farmers outside of government rationing. [18, p.30-31; 19, p.835, 843] scap policy directed the japanese government to "reinstate" agricultural quotas, and in 1946, it issued the emergency imperial food ordinance which empowered government expropriation of food for the production quota and enforcement of such policies; the u.s. eighth army participated in enforcing the policy within the civil administration. [17; 18] the yoshida government,the first democratically elected administration in the new state of japan, was keenly aware of the necessity of food in rehabilitating japan, as well as the importance of competing against the black market in order to once again establish the rule of law. [18] as such, the tight government control of domestic food production lasted much longer than in other industries, causing pressure for "non-essential" segments like the seasoning industry.

(as an aside, in line with certain ideas discussed in part i, scap directed land reform which redistributed much of the arable land in japan, increasing productivity of land and eliminating the interest of large landowners thought to be threatening to democracy. [18])

as discussed in my previous post, chemical alternatives to fermented soy sauce have been developed since the early 20th century. [6] during the war, substitute methods (especially amino acid-based ones, e.g. hvp or mixed hvp-honjozo) replaced fermented honjozo* methods as resources became more scarce. [20]

*honjōzō (本醸造) means "genuinely fermented".

in early 1948, it was announced that 20 000 tons of soybean meal would be made available by the eroa fund for the purpose of making seasonings, to be allocated by ms appleton at ghq/scap. [14; 6, p.159] this amount is only about 10% of the soybean consumption of soy sauce manufacturers before the war. on the surface, for an industry marginalized by the need to stave off starvation and maintain social stability, securing the imported soybean meal can be seen as a life-or-death situation. however, given the wartime state of sauce production, the struggle to acquire the soybean meal is more akin to an attempt to return to fully soy-based fermentation methods. the invention of the semichemical #2 method which increased soy usage productivity and secured most of the soybean meal for the soy sauce industry can be seen as a faster intermediate step to return to traditional fermented methods used before the war. it's also important to note that over 80% of soy sauce in japan has returned to traditional honjozo production, and that large companies such as kikkoman and yamasa have attempted to return to honjozo methods as early as the late 1950s. [20]

from this point of view, it does not seem particularly apparent that a single administrator had the power to change an industry, but rather her decisions were the impetus for developments to happen within the domestic industry. ultimately, japan's soy sauce industry was suffering the consequences of its industrialization and the failure of its colonial experiment. in a wider view, we can see this as a detail in the friction between two imperial projects. (consider this: out of the major parties involved, japan, china, usa, ussr, and other minor players in the pacific war, gb, netherlands, france, all of them entered the 20th century with imperial projects.)

research questions:

are there japanese sources that can verify production and imports during the 1940s?

there was a soy sauce control corporation formed by the imperial government in 1942 (全国醤油統制株式会社) that dictated resource allocation and quotas for the soy sauce industry. it seemed to have only been dissolved in 1948. what was its role after the war and what relationship did it have with scap?

iii - interests

as for interests, i will limit its scope to answering "who materially benefits." the groups at play are generally the same as the previous part, so i will be brief in elaboration.

the most obvious interest is that of the japanese public: their main material benefit in the late 1940s is to be nourished enough to stay alive (see part ii). while soy sauce is an important part of japanese cuisine, as a condiment, it is a nutritionally trivial part of its diet. it is then understandable, that japanese society and scap would be willing to temporarily sacrifice an immediate return to traditional production in favour of methods that would leave more food for direct consumption.

the next interest to discuss is that of the soy sauce industry, and its desire to return to honjozo (traditionally fermented) production after a period of scarcity during and after the war. it is important to note that regarding the 20 000 tons of soybean meal to be allocated by scap in 1948, the competitor to the soy sauce industry for those resources is the amino acid industry (msg, etc.). [6, p.159] with soybeans hard to come by, the soy sauce industry would have been under immense pressure to aquire the soybean meal distributed as aid. with kikkoman's development of semichemical #2 method, the scap decisionmakers reconsidered an earlier uneven distribution of soybean meal in favour of the amino acid producers. [6, p.160] what resulted next was talk between representatives of the two competing industries, facilitated by the americans. [6, p.160] it is important that taste trials were conducted, with wide support for the new semi-chemical method by the polled public. [6, p.160] at every step of the decision-making process, japanese interests were consulted by scap.

it is also important to mention the "japan lobby" in washington a set of interest groups and lobbyists representing japanese business as to illustrate the bidirectionality of influence in postwar japan. [21] this group arose from the aftermath of the first zaibatsu dissolutions. some key achievements of their advocacy activities include the disavowal of the fec-230 policy proposal from the allied powers (against gen. macarthur's wishes!), and adding revisions to scap's economic deconcentration program. it is plausible that this lobbying set had influence with scap and washington regarding soy sauce, given the tight-knit nature of the japanese business class. that said, the direct link between the japan lobby and soy sauce, should it exist, necessitates further research.

i think it is necessary to analyze from the lens of interests @inneskeeper's claim of the united states occupation forcibly seizing and making changes to a traditional food industry. it is known that the united states seeks to build a strong consumer economy that is open to american investment and imports of american products. [18, p.40] given that the soybean meal managed by scap in 1948 was aid, it would've been in the american interest to support either industry, since they would both eventually rely on american imports once the period of scarcity ends (china would soon cease ot be a reliable exporter of food). there is nothing related to soy sauce that would've been against american interests, business or political, whereas food scarcity has been a real problem facing the japanese and allied administration. in this case, the chief american interest is to stabilize japan as a society against two perceived social enemies: communism on the left and a renewed militarism borne of resentment on the right. with the task of placating a hungry and defeated populace, producing large amounts of soy sauce that is palatable to the public using minimal aid material would be an interest in and of itself for the americans. i think it could be argued whether comments made by americans about how easily japanese tastes can be swayed are insensitive and out of line, but it is also true that the public had much more pressing needs than condiment purity.

@inneskeeper also mentioned the yakuza in some of their posts as a possible interest group involved. the informal economy grew to encompass all strata near the end of the war and immediately afterwards; most urbanites were forced to use the black market to stave off hunger. [19] the yakuza, mafia-like organizations that would operate somewhat openly in the decades before the war, entered the fray as groups that managed informal vendors. [22, p.632] racketeering became rampant in the years immediately after japanese surrender due to shortages and irregular flows of necessities such as food, but as the economy recovered entering the 1950s, the yakuza moved to more conventional underworld enterprises such as as gambling, prostitution, and nightlife. [22, 23] it also moved towards the underbelly of political life, becoming an actor in anti-left politics. [22] we know that the changes to soy sauce production happened in the small window between the end of the war and the earnest start of economic recovery, so it is possible that parties involved would have to deal with the yakuza as a necessary source of material. however, since their sights are set on the industries traditionally associated with the underworld, it would be a stretch to say that they had any real say in the proceedings of this development beyond being one additional obstacle to the soy sauce industry in acquiring ingredients. that said, using a singular product can be very useful as a window into how the yakuza may have coerced informal food distribution channels.

research questions:

what specific outcomes were agreed upon at the "shoda-ouchi conference" between the soy sauce and amino acid manufacturing industries? [6, p.160]

how did the japan lobby affect or facilitate changes in the soy sauce industry?

how did the yakuza affect the informal food economy?

iv - individuals

one thing that made the original story by @inneskeeper so appealing to the tumblr public is the proposition that a single person may have changed japanese soy sauce forever.

it bears repeating that major industrial changes (and i would challenge the categorization of this soy sauce happening as "major" in comparison to the general state of japan in the 1940s) are often the culmination of many small decisions from a wide set of actors. what is interesting about the idea of a singular "manipulator" is that it mirrors a common trope in american foreign policy: the idea of "our guy" (e.g. "our guy in afghanistan" [24, p.277], "our guy in panama" [25], etc.), that is, a singular handler for american interests in a foreign theatre of operations. in this case, since the country at hand is managed by an american occupation, "our guy" in the japanese soy sauce industry is an american, ms. blanche appleton. while american policy sometimes prefers to use this paradigm, it does not necessarily mean it works, not is the wishful american imagination correct when it comes to situations on the ground (see citations above). this trope may also possibly be borne of the oft-cited concept of "american individualism," a value that is as much a contradiction (how can a single person be free to change the world as they see fit, while also live in a world free from the will of others?) as it is a real part of american culture.

in the faulty narrative of ms. appleton, we also see a similar contradiction: how can a foreign woman who is allegedly willingly unfamiliar (as it turns out, probably not true [6, p.160]) with the native culture be in total control of an entire element of its cuisine? what is the meaning of "total power": did she personally decide taste profile of the condiment to her tastes, coerce various native parties to the will of the americans (what will?), or facilitate the solution to a complex resource distribution problem? in any case (except the fancifully implausible first case), what is the singular role of ms appleton? did power flow from her, or through her? perhaps a more interesting way to look at this problem is to ask what would have happened if someone else were in ms. appleton's place. would their personal influence be significant enough as to change the outcome? if so, what would have been the extent of the changes? (we can maybe look at the facilitation of the "shoda-ouchi conference" as one point. [6, p.160]) conversely, what would have remained the same as the various parties involved influenced the situation?

a more helpful view is to see the balance between the ideas, institutions, and interests behind each decision that would paint a more complete picture of this historical era. perhaps it is not as flashy to break down a chapter in culinary history as the convergence of multiple influences, but it is the one that does history most justice.

discussion questions

this is for the test

how significant was the dearth of food in late 1940s japan to this situation, and what similar adaptations of food cultures occurred in other post-wwii nations?

what factors from imperial japan, whether before the sino-japanese war or during the war, influenced this situation?

is there any part of this development that forshadows the economic rehabilitation and subsequent growth of japan in the latter half of the 20th century? if so, how?

what american attitudes were at play in this situation, and what japanese attitudes (if you're familiar) were involved as well?

what influence did china, as the originator of soy sauce, a major source of food in east asia, and a significant allied power, have on postwar japan and how did it influence the development of the japanese variants of soy sauce?

what was the influence of the japanese public's tastes?

bibliography:

apologies for the weird mix of ieee inline and mla bibliography formats, ieee works best with hypertext but doesnt make much sense for non-stem subjects.

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Sugita, Y. Pitfall or panacea : the irony of US power in occupied Japan 1945-1952, New York: Routledge, 2003. [avail. at libraries]

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Crisis, Time, 1944. [link]

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Smith, H.F. (Chief, Food Branch, Price and Distribution Division, ESS, SCAP) "Food Controls in Occupied Japan" in Agricultural History Vol. 23, No. 3, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1949 [link]

Fuchs, S. J. "Feeding the Japanese: Food policy, land reform, and Japan’s economic recovery" in Democracy in Occupied Japan: The U.S. Occupation and Japanese Politics and Society, edited by M. E. Caprio and Y. Sugita, New York: Routledge, 2007. [link]

Griffiths, O. "Need, Greed, and Protest in Japan's Black Market, 1938-1949" in Journal of Social History Vol. 35, No. 4, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2002. [link]

Oya, Y. "みそ製造業の構造変化とその要因" in 食品経済研究第30号 (Bulletin of the Department of Food Economics, Nihon University), Tokyo: Nihon University, 2002. [link]

Schonberger, H. "The Japan Lobby in American Diplomacy, 1947-1952" in Pacific Historical Review Vol. 46, No. 3, Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 1977. [link]

Siniawer, E. M. "Befitting Bedfellows: Yakuza and the State in Modern Japan" in Journal of Social History Vol. 45, No. 3, The Hidden History of Crime, Corruption, and States, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2012. [link]

Hill, P. B. E. The Japanese Mafia: Yakuza, Law, and the State, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2003. [link]

Blaxland, J., M. Fielding, and T. Gellerfy, Niche Wars: Australia in Afghanistan and Iraq, 2001–2014, Canberra: ANU Press, 2020. [link]

Kornheiser, T. "Noriega Our Bountiful Nation" The Washington Post, Dec. 22, 1989. [link]

#svlt speaks #the mysterious appearance of miss appleton

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